Sleeping Beauties

Fresh off of declaring, "Horror is just not my thing," what do I read next?

I've been thinking lately about horror I enjoy versus horror I don't enjoy, which made me nostalgic for my Stephen King phase, plus I kept hearing interesting buzz about the concept of this novel, so onto my hold list it went.

This monster of a book kind of absorbed my entire life, which it would have to for me to finish all 702 pages in three days. I am still kind of processing how I feel about it.

Don't go into this book expecting any kind of thorough critique of gender. Despite the entire book being about an affliction that affects all women and only women, there is nary a mention of trans men or trans women, which is something I think people would definitely be show more interested in in this situation. There are some very over-simplified "men are this way, women are this way" bits, but all from character POVs that make sense. You do sometimes wish for one woke folk to stand up and say, "it's our societal definitions of gender rather than biological determinism that yields the behavior you're describing," but, nope.

The whole thing could not be more perfectly timed though, published in the wake of the Weinstein scandal when every few days some new bigwig/actor/director/writer is outed and shamed as a rapist/harasser. It's hard not to root for the cocooned women who blindly dismember those who disturb their rest.

One thing that was weird about the book was how often a character would suddenly say or think something about being black, and every time my reaction was, "Wait, they're black?" and I would scramble across chapters and chapters of that character existing in the story looking for any clue or mention of ethnicity. It was especially odd because it usually came up in a "how being black has shaped my life" thought. HOW MUCH CAN IT HAVE SHAPED THEIR LIFE IF YOU HAVE GIVEN US NOT ONE INDICATION OF SUCH UP UNTIL THIS POINT? DOES THEIR RACE MATTER OR DOESN'T IT? DO YOU EVEN KNOW?

I think naming the agent of disturbance in this story Evie without ever really deciding if there is a Biblical Eve, or Biblical God, and just borrowing that imagery without making it really consistent was unnecessarily messy.

Despite all this, I actually really enjoyed reading it. It was like someone put Orange is the New Black, Justified, and The Stand in a blender with some moths. And I like 3 out of 4 of those things. (Still have never seen/read OINTB.) I liked the sheriff and the book club ladies and the puppy love and the women discovering each other's hidden skills in Our Place and Angel the homicidal maniac.

A good creepy read for Halloween. Horror still isn't really my thing, though. show less

Well, count me in the apparent minority. I actually quite enjoyed this one.

I'm not saying it wasn't without its flaws (really, how many books can you not say that about?), but overall, it gave me what I wanted.

So, let's talk the flaws first, okay? As per usual with most King novels, it's a touch bloated, but the bloat is front-loaded here. You get through part one, and then it picks up steam and gets rolling. So, yes, some trimming could be in order, but the book pays off if you stick with it.

...and that, for me, is the major flaw of this book. I also have some quibbles.

I would have loved to have seen it tied to the King universe, but, unless I missed a character reference, I didn't see one. Just one little head nod to Joe Hill, and show more that was just a namecheck.

The Appalachian setting threw me off a bit, but as they state toward the end of the audiobook, Maine has had more than its fair share, and this was neutral ground for both authors, so I can respect that.

Some said there were too many characters and that they were hard to tell apart. I say you weren't paying attention.

Some said it was too like Under The Dome etc. Well...yeah, in the fact that it centred on a small town going through a major calamity? Yes. Funny how they play out, huh? But really, no, it's not Under The Dome. In fact, I'd say this one worked better, to be honest.

Some said King's pushing his politics too much here. Okay, first off, there's two Kings, not one, and second...Jesus Christ, people, this is a story where all the women essentially go away. Did you really not expect a bit of a message in this one? Really?

But the message, at least to this old white guy's ears, rang true. While there will always be exceptions to the rule, women are the nurturers, women are the peacemakers. Men are, really and truly, very often the ones that play the asshole. Again, yes, yes, exceptions. But it felt pretty accurate to me.

And I also read complaints about the tiger. All I'll say is, think long and hard, and look at what other animal shows up, and I think you can figure out what that's all about.

Finally, for me, the thing that just made the book? Eve Black. She was, as far as I'm concerned, the anti-Randall Flagg. His polar opposite. I fell in love with her in this novel.

So, don't believe all the "this is King's worst book ever" horseshit—because we all know that title belongs to The Tommyknockers, don't we? —and read the damn book. Yes, it's going to be a touch different, because Cousin Owen is a part of it. But so is Uncle Stevie, so it's just fine. show less

Reading Sleeping Beauties at a time when arguments rage about victims’ rights, rape culture, and women’s health at large is a balm to the soul. Indeed, the idea of women building our own society without men is downright utopic after this past year of nothing but Hillary bashing, rising misogyny, and increasing hatred towards anything not white and male. Perhaps the wishful thinking evoked by reading Sleeping Beauties colored my opinion of it; it is difficult to see how it did not. It is with this in mind though that I type up my thoughts on the latest King novel.

Sleeping Beauties is not a typical King novel, and by that I mean it is not a typical Stephen King novel. It has his hallmark attention to detail, large cast of characters, show more and world-building. It does dabble in one otherworldly creature and one unexplainable situation. However, there are no monsters hiding in the shadows. There are no objects turned evil. No undead prowling the streets. In this regard, it is more similar to his 11/22/63 than it is to The Shining or even the Mr. Mercedes trilogy.

The most terrifying thing about Sleeping Beauties is the men and the rapidity at which society declines upon the women falling asleep. The entire novel occurs in the period of a week, and the town of Dooling by the end of that week is a burnt-out shell of itself in more ways than one. While the Kings resort to caricatures for many of the men in Dooling, readers still experience a shock at the ease with which most of the men, no matter how cliched they are, justify their crass or even violent behavior towards others. Even more upsetting is how frequently we hear and accept (for the most part) these same excuses in everyday life. The men in Dooling mirror right-wing arguments currently being spouted in the United States right now, and that is downright horrifying.

The story itself is interesting as a direct result of its close ties to current headlines. The Kings are careful to show that not all men are horrible pigs, just as they show that a women-only society will have its own problems. Conflict is a part of life no matter what gender you are, and crime will occur whenever a group of people live together whether that group is all men or all women or a mix of the two.

As much as I enjoyed the story and recommend it to others, Sleeping Beauties is not without its problems. For one, the Kings fail to discuss the sticky situation of gender. Does the sleeping curse only occur in humans with ovaries and a uterus? What about transgender? What about hermaphrodites? Does your identified gender matter in this case? I would have loved to see the Kings explore this area, especially because the men and women of Dooling are supposed to represent the rest of the world. Yet, this portion of society is missing.

For another, no matter how careful they are, the Kings resort to a lot of cliches. If one were to take the men of Dooling and categorize them, the majority of the men are the gun-toting, heavy drinkers who think women were put on the earth to serve men. Society breaks down so quickly because the men are too busy drinking away their sorrows to consider the greater good. The power struggle that occurs among the remaining citizens is solely because of the existence of Evie and the outrage that a woman could ever best a man. While I have no doubt that there are many men who fit the Dooling model in real life, you wish that there was a little more originality put into the characters. Did they have to be the stereotypical Appalachian man, complete with moonshine and drugs and gun stockpiles?

In spite of those issues, Sleeping Beauties is important in that it forces you to think about the coexistence of the sexes rather than to take them for granted like we do. I can see this being an excellent book club selection as well for that reason. There is so much within the story that begs for further discussion, from the fall of society without women to Our Place to the depiction of each gender in the story and more. It is worth repeating that this is not your typical King novel. Those of my friends who have read it and have expressed their displeasure at it cite that as one of the reasons they did not like it. However, if you go into it with an open mind and no expectations, you might be pleasantly surprised by what you find. show less

Sleeping Beauties tracks the frightfully fast spread of "Aurora" a sleeping sickness that only affects women. When women fall asleep their face is cocooned in luminous white fluff and if they're awoken they will attack their disturber and kill them before going back to sleep. The world is in a panic, men are committing suicide and it appears the end is near. However in a small town in the Appalachian a woman is able to go to sleep and wake up. Never mind that she went to prison for murdering two meth heads and no one knows her real name, but she might have the answers for this worldwide epidemic and the "cure" might be found right in the sleepy little town of Dooling. There is a massive, wonderful cast of characters. There's good guys, show more bad guys, inmates, confused souls, and every type of person in between. Stephen King is masterful at bringing his characters to life and this book is no exception. This book isn't scary per se, but it definitely makes you think. A solid addition to the King treasury. show less

Just the right book at the right time for me. It probably had some flaws, but I loved it anyway. If you are a fan of Stephen King's big fat page-turners, this is a good one to pick up. It was cowritten with his son Owen King, but I couldn't detect two voices in the writing.

What amazed me was that this book was written by two men. The insight into women's anger, their labor, their oppression, and the humanity given to all of the women characters, especially the many women prisoners, inspired and uplifted me. Although not all of the men were as nuanced as characters, enough of them were, especially the two main male characters, who were not quite "hero" and "villain." What I especially loved about this story was that the ending came down show more to making choices, especially women making choices, and also that, despite the fairy-tale trappings, there was no fairy-tale-like happy ending. Life does go on, and this seemed entirely realistic, if perhaps a little melancholy. What a great read--I don't know if I'll be able to top it for some time. show less

When all the women who fall asleep become cocooned in a mysterious substance and unwakeable without significant negative consequences, the fate of the world rests in the hands of a few people from a small town in Appalachia. (I know, I was surprised it wasn’t Maine too.) King the elder has always written about bad things happening to good and bad people alike, because that’s the nature of the universe, and he’s also always written about the violence men inflict on women and children, and how those children often grow up to repeat the same patterns. So this book very much feels like a Stephen King book. This time, probably for the same reasons as the Kings wrote this story, I found myself thinking a lot about how people who do good show more things can nonetheless be shitty people in their personal lives, and how people who are well-meaning can end up on very much the wrong side of a conflict. And how you’re not required to grade on a curve—a man who is by and large a good man doesn’t thereby become entitled to the love of the woman he wants, or of any woman. Anyway, the supernatural, in the form of one Eve Black, is never quite explained even as she induces two groups of men (and a couple of women running on adrenalin and hard drugs) to fight to the death over her safety, on the hope that the women will choose to return if she survives. It’s a surprisingly upbeat story, as the elder King’s work goes; here’s hoping he’s right about the terrible storm through which we are now passing. show less

I'm a long time Stephen King fan, having read everything he's ever written. His sons, Owen King and Joe Hill are also talented writers. Sleeping Beauties is a joint effort between father and son Owen.

Sleeping Beauties is set in a small Appalachian town where the biggest employer is the women's prison. I love the weirdness that creeps into King's small towns. This one is no exception. As the women of the town start falling asleep, they become covered by white, gauzy tendrils. And once they're asleep and covered, well, they don't wake up. If the covering is torn away - let's just say it's not good for the men. There's one woman who has no trouble waking and sleeping with no ill effects. Who is the mysterious Evie? As more and more women show more fall asleep, the men begin to panic....are they ready for a world with no women?

On the one hand, Sleeping Beauties is a classic King horror tale. Taking something as innocuous as falling asleep and running with it. I love King's sideways view of the world and the pockets of unreality he imagines. But you could also look at the book with a different eye as well - in a social commentary sense if you will. Women's rights, the abuse of those rights, sexism, violence and more. There's also a snake in a tree and a woman called Evie.......'nuff said. There's a choice to be made by the women in the book. (Yep, including the sleepers)

I chose to listen to Sleeping Beauties. I've often said that listening to a book immerses me more fully in the story than reading. This was definitely the case for Sleeping Beauties. The performer (because she did more than narrate!) was Marin Ireland - and she was fantastic! She has a bold voice, easy to listen to and so very, very expressive. There are many characters in this novel and she created numerous voices, accents, tones and cadences to illustrate them. Her interpretation of the book was spot on.

How much of the book is Steven and how much is Owen? You know, it's not something I ever tried to discern. Instead, I happily popped in my earbuds for twenty five hours of what if...... and enjoyed every moment of it. show less