What happens if all the women in the world fall asleep and never wake up again? We review Sleeping Beauties written by the great Stephen King and his son Owen.
Sleeping Beauties – the blurb
All around the world, something is happening to women when they fall asleep; they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed, the women become feral and spectacularly violent…
In the small town of Dooling, West Virginia, the virus is spreading through a women’s prison, affecting all the inmates except one. Soon, word spreads about the mysterious Evie, who seems able to sleep – and wake. Is she a medical anomaly or a demon to be slain?
The abandoned men, left to their increasingly primal devices, are fighting each other, while Dooling’s Sheriff, Lila Norcross, is just fighting to stay awake.
And the sleeping women are about to open their eyes to a new world altogether.
Once upon a time
The name obviously harks to the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty but don’t be fooled, this is no Disney inspired book. The women once they fall asleep are coated in a strange cocoon which if disturbed wakes the women and turns them in to violent, zombie killing machines, not satisfied until they resume their sleeping. Sleeping Beauties is quite violent in its descriptions and there are a lot of deaths.
Give me a theme, any theme
Themes are rife in the book – biblical (a snake, a tree and a woman called Eve!) Gender issues, Japanese references (the snake and the tiger) and folklore (the fox) Alongside this the book is also very on point – it’s the second book in a row I have read that deals with racism and black lives matter. All of this and I’m not even addressing the Apocalypse Now slant the book took as the world crumbled around the unaffected men. It feels much more metaphorical and political than any other King I have read. Is this Owen’s influence? You could certainly look at Sleeping Beauties in much more depth, addressing whether there was a theme or two too many but this is just a book review for people who haven’t read it yet so I’ll leave that for another day.
Small town, lotta characters
Where Stephen King normally shines is his characters and his portrayal of the small American town. Sleeping Beauties has all the hallmarks of King – white male struggling internally, small American town, strong child character, even a truck made it’s chugging way in to the story. Yet somehow it didn’t quite work. There were a lot of characters and they struggled to settle with me. Too many were given the opportunity to push the story forward so that nobody truly shined, despite the 700 odd page count. I was routing for someone only to not see them again for 50 pages which is too many. There were touches of the good stuff – the First Thursday Book Club, the rounding up at the end of all the characters, classic King, yet even this I found a touch too twee.
It’s probably one I’m going to step back from and ponder over the next few weeks. In the meantime I’d love to know your thoughts on it. If you’re looking an undoubtedly brilliant King read, try Pet Sematary.