Book Review: Sleeping Beauties: A Novel
By Stephen King and Owen King
The Synopsis
In the small Appalachian town of Dooling, it’s business as usual. Ree and Jeanette are cellmates in the local women’s prison—Ree is serving time for credit fraud, forgery, and drug possession, while Jeanette is in for manslaughter after stabbing her husband in the groin with a screwdriver.
Meanwhile, Dr. Clinton Norcross, the prison psychiatrist, is at home wondering what he was thinking when he got his wife Lila (the Dooling sheriff) a pool for their 10th wedding anniversary, while musing on his experiences as a mental health professional. Elsewhere, Tiffany, a junkie, lives with her cousin Truman, a meth cook, in an isolated trailer. Out of nowhere, a mysterious woman shows up and kills Truman, leaving Tiffany shocked but alive.
Soon after, a global phenomenon strikes: when women fall asleep, they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If that gauze is disturbed, they awaken as feral, violently protective forces. The authorities name the sleeping disease Aurora.
Only one woman, the mysterious Eve Black, is immune to the condition.
As fear and confusion spread, Eve becomes the focus of suspicion, fascination, and conflict:
- The Protectors: Some believe she holds the key to saving humanity.
- The Aggressors: Others see her as a threat that must be eliminated.
- The Opportunists: Many exploit the chaos to wreak their own vengeance on new enemies.
As the men turn to violence in a suddenly all-male world, the women’s consciousness drifts to “Our Place,” a peaceful, matriarchal alternate world where cooperation and peace seem possible, creating a striking contrast to the chaos unfolding left behind.
Review
In Sleeping Beauties, the powerhouse duo of Stephen King and Owen King deliver a gripping, high-stakes allegory that feels both grand in scale and intimately unsettling.
The narrative heartbeat of the book relies heavily on its fractured character dynamics. At the center is Eve Black. She serves as a living Rorschach test for the town’s remaining men. To Clint Norcross, the empathetic prison psychiatrist, Eve is a patient to protect and a key to understanding the phenomenon. To others, driven by fear and toxic tribalism, she is a demon to be eradicated.
Stephen and Owen King have created a large cast of memorable characters whose strengths, flaws, and motivations drive the narrative. While its length may feel daunting at times, the richly developed characters and escalating tension keep the pages turning.
The prose is vivid and descriptive: “The liquor hadn’t taken over Terry’s mind yet, so far it was only visiting…”
The blend of supernatural horror and contemporary social issues gives the story emotional depth and relevance.
Core Themes
- Gender Dynamics & Matriarchy: The book aggressively interrogates how society functions without the stabilizing, often invisible labor of women. “Our Place” suggests that a world governed by women inherently leans toward harmony, contrasting sharply with the immediate chaos left behind.
- The Fragility of Civilization: With women gone, the male population rapidly devolves into primal, warring factions. The Kings masterfully expose how quickly systemic order crumbles into senseless violence when fueled by fear and toxic masculinity.
The Verdict
Ultimately, Sleeping Beauties is a provocative, urgent fable. It uses a supernatural lens to examine real-world gender divides, delivering a thrilling father-son collaboration that prompts readers to consider how fragile civilization can be when fear takes control.
Similar to King’s classics The Stand and Under the Dome, it’s an ambitious, provocative, and engaging novel that will appeal to fans of character-driven horror and readers who enjoy speculative fiction with meaningful themes.
“That was happening more and more: watchers lurking at the farthest reach of her vision. Hallucinations. How long could you stay awake before all rational thought broke down and you lost your mind compeletely?”
Have you read Sleeping Beauties? Do you think a world without women would devolve as quickly as the Kings suggest? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
About the authors
Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Never Flinch, the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Owen King is the author of the acclaimed novel The Curator, Double Feature, and We’re All in This Together: A Novella and Stories. He is the coauthor of Intro to Alien Invasion and the coeditor of Who Can Save Us Now? Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories.
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