Sleeping Beauties, Owen & Stephen King

Title: Sleeping Beauties
Author(s): Stephen King & Owen King
No. of pages: 736
Genre: Horror, Dystopia, Fantasy
Publication date: September 26th 2017
Date read: March 22nd 2018

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Blurb

In a future so real and near 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?
(Goodreads)

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Review

Okay, pfew! I finally read Sleeping Beauties! Before I started it, I was kind of afraid I might dislike it. I had heard some people not liking it and some even DNF it!

But – luckily – I loved it! At the front of the book you can find a list of names of characters and man … there are MANY! That kind of intimidated me at first, and I have to say I had to get used to all the different characters: who’s who and where does everybody fit into the story. But after 50 pages or so, I got really into the story and ended up living for every single character! The start also kind of reminded me of Under the Dome (which I also loved), because of the town and its inhabitants getting hit by an alien power … or so it seems. But after this, Sleeping Beauties really flowed over into its own story and I was hooked until the end!

So, what happens in a world where (almost) every single woman goes to sleep, only to not wake up and get covered in a cocoon like substance? Yep: the men freak out and eventually end up fighting each other, because each man seems to know what’s best for the sleeping women. Near the end there was a loooong part about the final fight which kind of dragged the story. That definitely could’ve been a lot less long and with that less dragging.

All in all, I really liked reading Sleeping Beauties and, although the length intimidated me at first, I raced through it! It won’t be one of my favourite King stories, but it definitely was a good one!

(All I’m left with to wonder about is how father (Stephen) and son (Owen) divided the writing of the book! I thought to recognise Stephen’s style in some parts, but further on they could also be so different from what I’m used to from Stephen.)