4 Stars for Sleeping Beauty

As far as concept goes, Stephen King will not disappoint. Sleeping Beauties by both Kings, Stephen and his son, Owen is not an exception. The story is not one especially horrifying, but more mystifying posing questions like: 1. What would happen if all the women in the world fell asleep inside a butterfly-like cocoon that posed deadly consequences if removed. 2. What would happen to all the men in the world if there were no women? 3. What would happen in a world of women without men?

Focused in a small Appalachia region in an impoverished town, a psychologist, and a sheriff fight to protect a possible cure (a woman named Eve Black) to the sleeping disease known as Aurora - the disease stealing women and maybe saving the world and beginning it again. And now, this poses another question: Is Aurora something that needs to be cured? By the end of the novel, this might be a question best left for the reader to decide.

Because of the clever concept, fleshing out the characters boiled down to the deflowering of only one onion, the person left to decide the fate of all women. The Kings did a good job of peeling that particular onion; however, there were too many other characters. I could not cling to any of them with the exception of the chief decision maker.

Plot spun itself unraveling to a satisfying ending, but leaving an intricate, ambiguous web. My biggest question being: Who was/is Eve Black? There was certainly a lot of speculation including allusion from Mercutio's famous Queen Mab speech in Romeo and Juliet. Queen Mab is a fairy playing pranks in the minds of her sleeping victims. There is also the choice of a name, Eve, another possible allusion to the Bible's first woman. The idea of her true identity being left to ponder did not bother me because the theories felt like a swirl of rainbow cotton candy turning sugar sweet in my mouth. In the end, who Eve Black is/was did not matter because the fate of all women rested on one.

In addition, I found the idea of two men writing a book analyzing the psychology of a woman's mind refreshing. Refreshing because it was filled with understanding, compassion, and the humility it takes for men and women to live together without some strange unnecessary power struggle.

I recommend the King books not only for story and concept, but for the clairvoyance it takes to understand the human condition in the mind of a woman. Joe Hill, Stephen King's other son, does this as well. I recently had the pleasure of viewing the first three episodes of his NOS4A2 on AMC with a young strong female protagonist. I read the book, NOS4A2 several years ago, and enjoyed it enough to read it in four days. I posted a review here in favor of this book and posted a review on my blog for the new AMC series show, because after all this is a book site not a film site.

Go out and read a King/Hill novel today!