Firstly, I want to say thanks to my friend, Chris, for getting me this book for Christmas and secondly, sorry Chris because this book sucks.

Stephen King has obviously got a lot of rope from selling 350 million plus books over the year, but there has to be an editor somewhere that can be honest with him. This book is 715 pages, but could easily have been half that length.

Sleeping Beauties is a The Stand/Under the Dome clone, but more clumsily done. There are a raft of characters involved, but the majority are one note or involved for barely a section of a chapter. Characters are introduced even into the last hundred pages of the novel and I did find myself confused once or twice in the middle of the book about who was who.

My biggest qualm with the book is that the eventual conflict is set up at around the half way point of the book and it takes another 250 pages to get there. The trudge leaves no fulfilment when it finally happens. We're treated to the minituae of both sides setting up for it and treated to an unnecessary subplot that drags things out further.

It's rather idealistic in how it sets apart the men and women. Where I don't doubt there would be a lot of violence in a men's world, the setting up of the women's world and lack of conflict therein doesn't quite ring true especially with a group of inhabitants from the local women's prison. The prisoners are fine in this new world because men caused them to get sent to prison. It's a little trite.

Again, sorry, Chris!

[ONE MILD SPOILER]
This was my first Stephen King (or Owen) except for half-reading Pet Semetary as a teenager. I initially enjoyed the town setting and characters the authors created. The main plot point set in and I was immersed. It's quite a slow book but it was working for me. I found the varied reactions of the men to the situation very interesting. By the end, however, I just wanted it done with so stayed up way past my bedtime to do so.

So what were the problems?

1. Too bloody long. Really, almost nothing justifies unwieldy sizes. Could have shaved at least 25%, and improved it greatly. Blah blah blah. Give it a rest.
2. Random weirdness. There was a tiger. And a snake. They didn't do anything. Erm... Most pointlessly, some random characters completely unconnected to the plot turned and hammered the key locations in the plot with pretty much the biggest firepower of any of the characters. WTF?
3. Unconvincing resolution. Who was the main mystery character? Why now? Main decision felt rushed and too neat.

There was some really great writing at the start, and some very moving things happened in the back half too but this didn't complete well. It's common. Mystery/fantasy stuff is hard to do endings for.

I was initially thinking I'd start reading some more King but I'll be putting it off a while now.

Unfortunately, Sleeping Beauties is one of King's worst novels. The plot has promise but a 700 page novel can't survive on plot alone. Typically, King is a master of character development and the characters carry his longer novels (like It, The Stand, and to a lesser extent Under the Dome) but in Sleeping Beauties his charters are universally either unlikable or worse, uninteresting. Sleeping Beauties is an obnoxious book because of the characters. They don't feel real and their actions come off as ridiculous. This is an unenjoyable novel in most respects.

25 hours later

I really liked this book. I think there is so much more about this scenario that could make excellent fodder for other authors, but I really liked how the Kings wrote this particular bit of how it would be for these specific individuals in this specific place. I liked the characters and found the climax and the aftermath satisfying.

Abused and battered women unanimously choose to go back to the men the who spent the the entire book confirming they are violent and abusive. Yeah no…..