Book Review: Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King

For the longest time, I have proudly proclaimed Stephen King to be my favorite author. Sadly, his last several efforts have been disappointing to say the least. His Bill Hodges trilogy got mixed reviews from fans, and although I did enjoy those, they were far from his best work, in my opinion. The Outsider was okay, but again, somewhat lacking. With this novel, coauthored by his son Owen, he may have hit a new low.

Here is the book description from his official website https://www.stephenking.com/

In a future so real it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep; they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep, they go to another place.

The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Evie a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain?

Set in a small Appalachian town whose primary employer is a woman’s prison, Sleeping Beauties is a wildly provocative, gloriously absorbing father/son collaboration.

First of all, I don’t really know what to think about collaborations. Supposedly, the story idea came from Owen, and he originally suggested to his father that he write the novel. SK countered with the offer that they work together on the book. Having read most, if not all, of his novels, I have to say that this never felt like a SK novel to me. (Maybe Owen wrote the majority and Dad helped by adding his name to the cover. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt my sales to list some best-selling author as my collaborator!)

So, here are my thoughts on the book. I give it a generous 2 stars (out of 5).

•     There were too many characters and none were very well developed. Is it a bad sign when the author provides a list of characters before the first chapter? And if the list runs 4 pages?
•     It was slow and boring. Is it a bad sign when a character is killed and you don’t really remember who they are, but you don’t even care enough to go to the long list at the beginning to see?
•     It was too long. Over 700 pages! (And the events of the book only cover a 5 day period!)
•     It was too political. Keep reading.

If you know anything about Stephen King or if you’ve seen any of his social media posts, you know, he is a huge Trump-hating Liberal. That’s fine. He’s certainly entitled to his opinions, and even though he seems to be dropping more and more of his political views into his works, it doesn’t bother me that much. I’m sure that my conservative Christian views creep into my stories at times, and that’s only natural, but this one is different.

From the dedication (to Sandra Bland) and the quotes on the opening pages (including the infamous “she persisted”), the theme of the novel is definitely feminism. Men are the problem in this world and you are reminded constantly. Unfortunately, even the women are not particularly likeable in this book, but I suppose they are meant to be the heroes. Only two outrageously Liberal men could write such a man-hating book!

Oops, I may have given away the plot. Men are bad. Men are awful. Everything would be great if there were no men around. (For example, that women’s prison in the story, would it surprise you to know that every single woman inmate is there because of some man who ruined her life and is ultimately responsible for all those crimes she committed?)

Even to non-horror readers, I have always defended SK as a great narrative storyteller. In his best works, it is almost impossible to find a stopping place. As each chapter ends, you are so caught up in the story, that you can’t help but want to keep right on going into the next one. Not so with this book. At some points, it was all I could do to get to the end of the chapter before stopping to find a bookmark. And there were a few days when I couldn’t even force myself to pick it up. But I persisted.

Apparently, and sadly, the trend toward pushing his Liberal agenda in his books will continue with his new novel Elevation which features a lesbian married couple as major characters. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (sorry, couldn’t resist), but I’m not a big fan of books that try to normalize alternative lifestyles whether we agree with them or not. Guess I’ll just have to go back and re-read his older works that told a good story without trying to force his political views down people’s throats.

In conclusion, you might want to skip this one.