Jilly's Reviews > Sleeping Beauties

I'm rating this middle-of-the-road because the stuff I liked about the book I really liked, but the stuff I hated I really hated.

Liked:
Stephen King really gets you inside the characters heads and creates complex characters. I had strong feelings about many of the characters.

Hated:
There were too many damn characters. There was a cast of characters at the beginning of the book that had over 70 people listed. I was like, do I really need to study this before reading? Is this going to be on the test? I'm not sure if I'm up for it.
Also, he added in a couple of bad guys at about 3/4ths of the way into the book. They didn't add anything to the overall story except for additional pages of us having to learn absolutely everything about them and their family histories. I would rather have stuck with the characters I was already invested in and their storylines. It was simply annoying.



Liked:
There is a plague! Well... a sleeping sickness that only affects women. It was slightly creepy, but a lot of fun to watch as it developed and women fought it for as long as they could. I thought it was funny that the cops eventually started doing meth and cocaine to stay awake. Personally, I'd just say f-it and go to sleep because I hate staying awake and I'd probably be one of those people who has an immediate heart attack if I try to take one of those drugs to stay awake. Hell, caffeine makes me jumpy.



Hated:
Along with the plague comes a magical tree, a magical tiger, a magical snake, and a semi-magical fox. They annoyed me. No, I didn't find them mystical and pretty. I found them to have a hell of a lot of pages dedicated to their magicalness and I hated them the whole time. Have I mentioned I hate magic? Sure, I like Urban Fantasy, but I have no patience for magic. The only thing worse than magic, in my book, is if it is being performed by a clown. Oh, and we can thank Mr. King as well for our societal fear of clowns.



Liked:
There is a lot of girl power in this book. The sleeping women travel to another time/space and start a new society. They do amazing things together and build their own new world. There is a lot of food for thought in there:

Molly (12 yrs old) walked the two blocks back to her house (in the dark). By herself. And why could she do that? Because in this world there were no predators. No pedophiles.

Hated:
Although I am all for a good girl-power theme, the world of men seemed to fall apart a little too fast for me. It seems that most men are aggressive, animalistic killing machines without us girls! I guess it's good to be needed, but come on. Society completely falls apart in five days! I truly think they could have made it a bit longer. At least I hope so...


Omg, can I have this bunny??? He's so cute!
(sorry. I guess I am a stereotype myself. Writing a review: "Oh look, a bunny!!")

And finally:
What I hated more than anything and, to me, was the most important thing about this book:

This book was too damn long!

It would have been so much better if it was a hundred pages shorter. Or, even more.
There were pages and pages on the magic tree. Pages and pages of what a FOX is thinking. Pages and pages of the guys setting up for their war. Pages and pages of those bad guys that were added in really late and didn't need to be in the book at all.
Too long!

Still, overall, it was a pretty good book and I got engrossed in the story. I would recommend it for people who like Stephen King and who have patience.