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roperqueen26's review against another edition
4.0
Although I was really intrigued by the plot and story, the book really doughnut 2 flow very easily. If I wasn't such a big SK fan, I probably wouldn't have had the dedication to finish it.
roulettegirl's review against another edition
4.0
One of Stephen King's great strengths as a writer is his ability to capture a society in the middle of its collapse. In The Stand he wrote it on a global scale, in Under the Dome it was one small rural town. In Sleeping Beauties, he and his son Owen King do both. The action is focused on Dooling, a small town in rural Appalachia, but through news coverage and social media you learn how the rest of the world is reacting to an unprecedented event - and the world is not reacting well.
On a day like any other, a woman named Evie emerges naked from the woods and murders a meth cook and his buddy. Meanwhile, women around the world are falling asleep - or not waking up in the first place - and becoming enveloped in cocoon-like structures. If those cocoons are disturbed, the women react with murderous violence. As the world panics, women try desperately to stay awake and men become increasingly violent - towards the sleeping women, and each other. In Dooling, there is one woman who doesn't seem affected by the sleeping sickness - Evie. As the rumors of an immune woman spread, the men (and remaining women) of Dooling struggle over her fate, and the fate of the world.
On a day like any other, a woman named Evie emerges naked from the woods and murders a meth cook and his buddy. Meanwhile, women around the world are falling asleep - or not waking up in the first place - and becoming enveloped in cocoon-like structures. If those cocoons are disturbed, the women react with murderous violence. As the world panics, women try desperately to stay awake and men become increasingly violent - towards the sleeping women, and each other. In Dooling, there is one woman who doesn't seem affected by the sleeping sickness - Evie. As the rumors of an immune woman spread, the men (and remaining women) of Dooling struggle over her fate, and the fate of the world.
lraronson's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
vetter73's review against another edition
2.0
This was my first Stephen King novel. Yuck. I hated it! I didn’t even finish.
jxg255's review against another edition
2.0
This was a really long story and am unsure if it was pro or anti women as they fall asleep and play with how the world might operate without women.
rosey4boston's review against another edition
4.0
This one was pretty good! Definitely an innovative story. It channeled some Body Snatchers/Assault On Precinct 13/The Mist vibes, and had a great blend of science fiction, fantasy and a huge dose of reality. I think my only real issue with it was the sheer amount of characters. Typically King does a great job developing a small group, but there were a LOT of characters introduced, even in third act of the book, and I think because of that, they felt more throw-in and development waned. However, the climax of the book was ROCKIN’. You can definitely tell the differences between father and son writing, but that’s the brakes with a collaboration. I still really enjoyed it.
spitefullysane's review against another edition
4.0
I loved the whole premise. I loved the digs at current issues, the hints at previous characters and abilities and the overall message.
monitamohan's review against another edition
3.0
I only occasionally read Stephen King as some of his books can be more of a miss than a hit for me. But there’s no doubting that the man’s imagination has no bounds. Together with his son, Owen, they wrote Sleeping Beauties, a story about the women of the world falling asleep and becoming encased in cocoons.
In the meantime, a powerful and strange woman calling herself Evie Black appears in a small town and turns the lives of everyone upside down. Is Evie behind this phenomenon, in which case how do the townspeople stop her from affecting more women?
Conceptually intelligent, the plot doesn’t try very hard to be poignant or relevant. Why are the women cocooned and left helpless? How does that benefit them? The men continue to be terrible - to each other and to the women. Yes, the comatose women do attack when directly threatened but they’re left vulnerable to men in any case. They’re set on fire with no recourse, so who won in this uncalled for war?
While the women characters are superb - layered, imperfect and compelling - there isn’t enough focus on them once they start falling asleep. I loved those characters and the book should have been about them investigating a scary phenomenon and delving into the myths and impact of patriarchy.
Evie’s agenda makes no sense, irrespective of how the authors try to dress it up in the end. She supposedly changes the world for the better but those utopian steps aren’t earned. Here’s why. The story spends too much time focusing on a group of people investigating the phenomenon or attempting to fix the problem that it forgets to focus on the actual fears or concerns of the characters.
Terry goes into depression after his wife is cocooned, but we hardly even read about Terry so his downfall didn’t resonate. Most of the other male characters were written solely as despicable and disgusting characters. The authors are eerily accurate in their descriptions of how toxic masculinity works and how some men think, which is great but there’s so much page space given to these characters at the expense of the much more interesting women.
The good guys are the other opposite - Clint and Jared are veritable saints, which was a relief but it’s sad how their endings went. More than them, I think Lyla deserved better. She was an amazing character. All the women deserved better especially given their eventual choice.
The women were stuck between a rock and a hard place, another black mark against Evie. Honestly, what was the point of it all? The ladies were miserable on either side of their coma and all of them were handed bad cards following their decision. The writers try to suggest that life is idyllic in the final act, but most of those women’s new lives would be considered a living hell to many.
What bothered me a lot about the book was that the authors reiterated that only people with the XX chromosome were affected by the phenomenon - I kept expecting that the authors would showcase the gender spectrum, perhaps with trans and non-binary/gender fluid characters coming to the fore discussing how their community was impacted or not by this and of course, about them being left out of the conversation. But the writers only deal with cis characters. Not a mention of any other gender. When Evie Black seems to be defying the odds no one wonders about how her chromosomes could be the cause. Why not?
In the end, it feels like the book capitalizes on the popularity of Orange is the New Black and attempts to be woke but refuses to actively engage with women’s issues and the landscape of characters. The book is very entertaining, downright enthralling, but we need more.
In the meantime, a powerful and strange woman calling herself Evie Black appears in a small town and turns the lives of everyone upside down. Is Evie behind this phenomenon, in which case how do the townspeople stop her from affecting more women?
Conceptually intelligent, the plot doesn’t try very hard to be poignant or relevant. Why are the women cocooned and left helpless? How does that benefit them? The men continue to be terrible - to each other and to the women. Yes, the comatose women do attack when directly threatened but they’re left vulnerable to men in any case. They’re set on fire with no recourse, so who won in this uncalled for war?
While the women characters are superb - layered, imperfect and compelling - there isn’t enough focus on them once they start falling asleep. I loved those characters and the book should have been about them investigating a scary phenomenon and delving into the myths and impact of patriarchy.
Evie’s agenda makes no sense, irrespective of how the authors try to dress it up in the end. She supposedly changes the world for the better but those utopian steps aren’t earned. Here’s why. The story spends too much time focusing on a group of people investigating the phenomenon or attempting to fix the problem that it forgets to focus on the actual fears or concerns of the characters.
Terry goes into depression after his wife is cocooned, but we hardly even read about Terry so his downfall didn’t resonate. Most of the other male characters were written solely as despicable and disgusting characters. The authors are eerily accurate in their descriptions of how toxic masculinity works and how some men think, which is great but there’s so much page space given to these characters at the expense of the much more interesting women.
The good guys are the other opposite - Clint and Jared are veritable saints, which was a relief but it’s sad how their endings went. More than them, I think Lyla deserved better. She was an amazing character. All the women deserved better especially given their eventual choice.
The women were stuck between a rock and a hard place, another black mark against Evie. Honestly, what was the point of it all? The ladies were miserable on either side of their coma and all of them were handed bad cards following their decision. The writers try to suggest that life is idyllic in the final act, but most of those women’s new lives would be considered a living hell to many.
What bothered me a lot about the book was that the authors reiterated that only people with the XX chromosome were affected by the phenomenon - I kept expecting that the authors would showcase the gender spectrum, perhaps with trans and non-binary/gender fluid characters coming to the fore discussing how their community was impacted or not by this and of course, about them being left out of the conversation. But the writers only deal with cis characters. Not a mention of any other gender. When Evie Black seems to be defying the odds no one wonders about how her chromosomes could be the cause. Why not?
In the end, it feels like the book capitalizes on the popularity of Orange is the New Black and attempts to be woke but refuses to actively engage with women’s issues and the landscape of characters. The book is very entertaining, downright enthralling, but we need more.