Review: "Sleeping Beauties," by Stephen King and Owen King

I had the pleasure, and rare experience, of not only being able to see Stephen King speak in person, but of also taking away a signed copy of this book from the event. So I will always cherish this book in a way unlike the others on my bookshelf. That said, it wasn't my favourite King book. Probably not by a long shot, unfortunately. Interestingly, I first learned about the prospect of this book years ago when I listened to both Stephen and Owen do an interview here in Toronto on the radio show, Q. Back then, it was just an idea that Owen had presented, not fully formed, to his father Stephen. When asked about it, they said they didn't want to discuss the idea because they didn't want to spoil the excitement of it. Now we know what that idea turned out to be: Sleeping Beauties. The premise of this book is a good one. All the women go to sleep (effectively disappearing) and the world is left for men to rule. Sure, you could argue that this is the world we already live in, with Patriarchy being the way it is. But Sleeping Beauties takes Patriarchy a step further, and eliminates the steadying, rationale that comes with having women around. As we might expect, the world descends into chaos as men revert almost purely to war to make sense of anything. And on the other hand, we do get to see what happens when only women inhabit the world. When the women go to sleep, enshrouded in their cocoons, they are taken to an alternative world where only women exist, and where time moves with a disregard for conventional rules. So not only do we see how the world works with only men, we also see how the world works with only women. I personally found the "only-women" story-line far more interesting than the "only-men" story-line. The "only-men" story-line was predictable. The alternative was not, and more interesting as a result. The book wasn't written in a reader-friendly manner, in my opinion. It is very clear that two different people wrote this book. If you've read enough King, you can sort of pick out the sections he wrote, and you can distinguish which parts Owen likely wrote. Stephen has a few syntactical habits that appear in his writing, which give him away. As a result, the book is stilted and uneven. The story presents itself in great blocks, as though we are being handed the book in alternating sections as each respective writer finishes their part and hands it over to the other to take over. Eve, perhaps the most important piece to this story, isn't a fully formed character. She begins as a very exciting character, sort of entering the story like a nuclear bomb being dropped into the town of Dooling. Then she disappears to the periphery for the rest of the story until she is conveniently brought back in. Really, her only purpose was to teach the men a lesson, and it seemed corny. The first quarter (200 pages or so) is really good. It's fast, the characters are interesting, and the drama unfolds in an entertaining fashion. Then the action comes to a halt, and for the next 500 pages, a hole bunch of nothing happens. Even the ending is fairly unfulfilling, and seems to happen more out of a convenience to end the book. The idea for Sleeping Beauties is about as Stephen King as it gets. It should have been written by Stephen from beginning to end, and about three or four hundred pages longer. It should have been stretched out to resemble Under the Dome in that we get to know the characters better, giving more time for genuine conflict to arise. The conflicts in SB seem half-formed, predictable, and too quick to arise. The sense I got was that Owen was too conservative, too reserved to take the book to a place it should have gone, and as a result he dragged Stephen down with him. Not to say there aren't good parts in the 700 pages. I mean, Owen clearly has the writing gene in his blood. He's gifted. And yes, there are definitely sections where it's hard to distinguish if Owen is writing versus Stephen. I particularly enjoyed the Clint-Lila story. I felt that their conflict was resolved too quickly; perhaps it should have been left unresolved until the end, rather than midway through the story. I also enjoyed the female prisoners, but we didn't get too much of their stories. The impact of the story might have been greater if they'd been included more. Overall, I can't say this book will be that memorable for me. It fell flat. In the end, the best part of this book is that it will forever be a signed copy by Stephen and Owen King.