Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The enormous list of characters is a warning sign of what is to come. As a Stephen King fan I was prepared for extra patience at the beginning to go through the back stories of all his characters. In this particular instance I did find those back stories a little too long. Once the main plot was revealed, however, I was hooked and read as much as I could over the next couple of days.
The positives for me:
I agree with most of the authors’ observations of gender roles in present day society. Even though the book is set in a small city in the USA, those behaviour transcends race and nationality. The points of views of some of the ‘bad’ characters, e.g. Don Peters the sexual predator and Frank Geary in his moments of uncontrollable violence, are written convincingly, offering an insight to how some people justifies their distasteful action in their minds. I especially like a scene where Don Peters, when witnessing another man with a drinking problem, declares how he much despise men with no impulse control.
Occasionally, the same unfairness between black and white American is touched upon, specifically with white cops shooting black civilians. The authors do not offer any solution for the either unfairness but simply describes the dilemma faced by those in the position of strength and the sorrow of those who suffers. While the phenomena of all women going to sleep provokes extreme thoughts and action in the men that stayed awake, little or no self-reflection occurs implying that little or nothing will change in that fictitious world.
The negatives for me:
The roles of the animals, insects and supernatural plant life seems unnecessary. They do not add much dimension to the plot except to create more reading for a book that is already unusually long. I am also not too persuaded by the concept of Evie Black. This complex supernatural being that is sold as a mother nature/ goddess type figure, in hindsight I can’t even be sure if she is that essential to storyline.
I am not fond of labels and never thought of myself as a feminist or otherwise. It does not matter to me whether this book or its authors are labeled in any way advocating for women’s rights, I am simply pleased that the subject is being discussed in a book written by a well known and respected white man, will be read by many more white men and hopefully will result in some self-reflection of men of this realm.