Sleeping Beauties
By: Stephen King & Owen King
702 pages (Hardcover)
Published: September 26, 2017 by Scribner
Rating: 
This was indeed the biggest book I have ever read, and sadly it wasn’t satisfying to finish. Yes, I was happy that it was over with but I didn’t really feel any sense of accomplishment. The novel was just…okay. In the beginning it kept my interest and I flew through the first half of the book in no time at all. The second half I wanted to DNF it. Let me tell you the synopsis and I will get into why this wasn’t that great of a book.
You are following characters from a town called Dooling, and most of the story takes place at the Dooling Correctional Facility for Women. There’s a reason why they made it an all women prison. Then you meet Eve Black who is very strange and in the beginning very deranged. As soon as she came into town and the women started falling asleep they became enveloped in this cocoon-like substance. If anyone disturbs them in that hibernating state they become rampant. Except for Eve, she seemed to be immune. While cocooned, the women go to another land but it’s similar to the one they came from except for the fact that there is no men. They start from scratch. Everyone starts to figure that Eve is the reason for this happening and some try to get rid of her and some do what she says. No one knows who or what this lady is but they are determined to find out.
Characters:
I don’t have a lot of issues with characters when it comes to what they say and how they speak. Unless it’s pretty bad, I can get past it. I’m not saying I had issues with anything said in this book the characters were just terribly irksome. I couldn’t connect with any of them. Honestly if you made me choose any of them it would be Eve Black. She was the least annoying and she spoke the truth for the most part.
Truman Mayweather was one of the characters that just irritated me. Every word that came out of his mouth made me want to punch him. I was thankful for what happened to him. You don’t really hear much about him through the book except for in the beginning, but the beginning is plenty let me tell you.
Lila and Clint were just a bunch of jealous babies. I understand that they were married and you have the right to be jealous. I just found the whole “Clint having another daughter but he really didn’t” was pointless to the whole story. It just made the book longer. I’m not saying that every book should be cut and dry and only focus on the main story line, but this was just too much.
Don’t even get me started with Fritz Meshaum and Don Peters. Those two were up there on my Truman Mayweather list. Their actions were very troublesome (especially Don Peters and the women at the prison). I could have done without. It’s not like I didn’t expect this from Stephen King though. Anyone who reads Stephen King knows that sometimes his novels get pretty problematic but no one really talks about it. It blows my mind. I guess if you don’t like his style of writing, don’t read it. Simple as that.
There were so many other characters in the novel but I can’t sit here and discuss every single one or I would go insane. Just know that they were all very interesting.
Plot:
I loved the idea of this book. I was interested to know how they were going to pull it off. I liked that all the characters were connected in some way. It was a pretty small town so it wasn’t that hard to connect them all. While listening to the audiobook they had an interview with Stephen and Owen and they mentioned that they actually went to an all women prison to see what it was like. They mentioned the different types of cells that they put the women in. They talked about the warden and I just thought it was really cool, for the lack of a better word. I love when authors go out and experience what they want to write about.
I’m also happy that they didn’t venture outside of this town because that probably would have been a disaster. They did mention that it was happening all over the world but never went beyond that. Stephen and Owen King did a pretty good job at sticking to what the story was actually about. With that being said there were definitely parts in there that were unnecessary. The ending also wasn’t satisfying. So if that’s what you are looking for with this book then I wouldn’t really recommend it. I was very disappointed.
Overall:
It was worth the three stars that I gave it. It had a good story line and the characters were well-developed I just didn’t like the ending and some parts were a little problematic (I’m also not trying to be dramatic about a Stephen King novel). The biggest problem to me was that the climax of the novel was at about the 600 page mark and it was just to get rid of some characters. It felt like a little bit of a waste of time but I still enjoyed myself. It was an interesting journey in the town of Dooling but I don’t think I’ll ever go back.
If you read the novel let me know what you think in the comments. If you enjoyed reading this review then give it a big ol like (I’m such an old lady). Remember to be respectful and happy reading!
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