Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King

(Source: Kelsey Darling)

This is my second Stephen King novel, and my first Owen King novel. Last year, I read 11/22/63, and that was extremely interesting. I was very excited when I received my pre-order of Sleeping Beauties.

Sleeping Beauties takes place in a small Appalachian town called Dooling. The first morning, everything seems fine. That is until a mysterious woman appears from a tree, kills two men (they are drug dealers) and then proceeds into town where she is arrested by Sheriff Lila Norcross. The mysterious woman gives her name as Evie Black. Little does Lila know it then, but Evie holds the answers to questions she does not even know to ask yet. Lila takes Evie to the prison where her husband Clint works as a psychologist; she is hoping that maybe he can make sense of Evie's riddles.

As the day progresses, news of the Aurora virus is spreading. Women are falling asleep and not waking up. As they sleep, they are cocooned in a web-like material that doctors and scientists cannot explain. If the web is disturbed, the women become violent until they can fall asleep again. Slowly, the worlds population is diminishing as women everywhere fall asleep. And now it is up to the men to restore order. But what do men know about restoring order when all they create is war?

(Source: Giphy)

There are a lot of characters in the story, and the POV changes frequently. You have the Norcross': Clint, Lila, and their son, Jared; various prison inmates; a fox; Evie; the prison warder, Janice Coates, and her daughter, Michaela Morgan; Dr. Garth Flickinger, a meth addicted plastic surgeon; and about ten to fifteen more, at least. It was hard keeping everyone in check. Some where only in the story for a little bit, others the whole thing; some had a part in the beginning, and then you didn't hear another thing about them until the end of the novel. Even now, it's hard remembering everyone and the roll they played. But each POV brings you that much more information about the world as it falls apart.

(Source: Giphy)

And that's the thing: with the men in charge, the world is literally falling apart. They can't live without the women. They remove the cocoon because they don't believe their female loved ones will act as others have; they carry them around because life without them is abnormal; and when pushed to the extreme, they burn the cocooned women out of fear.

"Although love is a dangerous word when it comes from men. Quite often they don't mean the same thing as women do when they say it. Sometimes they mean they'll kill for it. Sometimes when they say it they don't mean much of anything. Which, of course, most women come to know. Some with resignation, many with sorrow." (p. 659)

These words from Evie show why this is happening, at least partly, because when the women fall asleep, they go to another place, Our Place, as it is soon named. A place just like their world, but only with the female population. Without the men, their world knows mostly peace. Some miss their males sons and husbands, and yes, there is strife and conflict; but the overall feeling there is love. 

"This is a much better place than the one we left, and I believe the sky is the limit. Without men, we make decisions fairly, and with less fuss. We share resources with less argument. There has been very little in the way of violence among the members of our community. Women have irritated me my entire life, but they have nothing on men." (p. 671)

Dr. Norcross must keep Evie alive for about 5 days before she can do anything about the women; the time in Our Place moves differently and most residents have roughly a year to experience a life without men. When it comes down to the end, it is obvious the men have done poorly without the women, and the women of Dooling, the women who must decide for all of the women of the world, must decide if they want to return to the world of the awake, or stay in Our Place. 

The ending was a bit of a let down for me; the fact that I loved the entire book so completely until the end leaves me sad. I do not know what I expected, but I wanted it to be happier. That only happy thing in the end is that the pervert cop dies. I think fans of either Kings' work would thoroughly enjoy this, but I don't know if it would be the best first King book to read.

(Source: Giphy)

Rating: 7/10

Author: Stephen King and Owen King

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Thriller