Owen KingRecensioni

The storyline was unique and interesting....and it was well written, of course....but, its honestly little more than a feminist anthem.

I also didn't enjoy the political aspects... as I've mentioned numerous times before....I do NOT enjoy this in my fiction...the political incorrectness used to be an aspect of Kings work I really enjoyed.

There is a review here speaking negatively of reviewers not liking the political aspects of this book....a few down from mine.....the review states " Come on, It's fiction"....EXACTLY why we don't want politics snuck in. Fictional stories are NO place to push your personally agendas and ideologies!

I enjoyed this early on, but quickly saw where it was headed. This book has so much ruined potential......Not my fave by King.

I really loved this book. As I stated earlier, it started out as a library book, but I was enjoying so much that I returned it early and purchased the Kindle and audiobook versions.

Well done, Mr. King.

This is such an odd book - set in an alternate universe, similar to Victorian London, this book follows a nameless city (nicknamed Fairest, but never named) in the midst of a revolution. It follows different people from beggar children to college students turned revolutionaries. And, it all something to do with the strange museum that burnt down, but the only person who knows this is a D, a maid who is not what she seems. Oh, and this book has cats. Lots and lots cats. However, these cats, while mysterious and integral to the story, are probably the most cat like cats in a book in a very long time.

As for the book itself, it took me a while to get into it - I was expecting a more magic, less revolution. But after awhile, the 'magic' made an appearance, and it was considerably more subdued than I was expecting. I would describe this is a quiet story, the main character is capable, but keeps her head down. She does what is needed. Of course, the setting isn't quiet, its full of casual violence, people die, there's a ghost morgue ship floating around, collecting those that die unnaturally. The revolution isn't bloodless, oh, and the serial killer next door is a very scary person.½

I just finished this book and I am having a hard time putting into words how I am feeling. First off full disclosure I love Stephen King, I have had issues with clowns most of my life and still managed to read IT. The first thing that drew me with this book is the beautiful cover and the big oddity is that this book is not set in Maine. The story follows multiple character storylines. We see how these people are reacting and responding to the "Aurora" epidemic, as it is called. I thought the title of the disease was super fitting and the fact that it only effects woman drew you in even further because it does have a very big feministic undertone. Eve Black as the driving force of this novel was pure genius. The dynamics of the book and the town has a very under the dome feel to it. very well done. Owen King is not a person I have ever read I have read a few Joe Hill books and after reading this I will have to devote some more time reading books by another King. Owen welcome to my TBR list.

2.5 stars CW: sexual abuse/assault and talk of suicide. Themes involving sexism and racism.

Really fantastic story.
It was refreshing with regards to the ideas and the whole story. Sometimes you read a book or watch a movie, and it feels like a story that has been told so many times before - not Sleeping Beauties.

I had this book on pre-order since the 3rd of April and couldn’t wait to get my hands on it and get reading. I made sure I had finished my previous book the night before, and then the delivery man didn’t get here until almost 3pm on release day!! That’s like trying to hold kids off from opening their xmas present’s until 3pm xmas day!

So finally book in hand I decided to take it and sneak off, away from the kids and animals and I went and grabbed myself a caramel latte from Starbucks and that is where I stayed for several hours.

When I opened the book it started with just over 3 pages listing the characters and I thought “Oh god, I’m going to snuggle with this one, I’m rubbish with remembering names!” but No, that wasn’t an issue at all, even I kept up with who’s who owing largely to the fact of how well written and fleshed out each of the characters were, bringing each of them to life.

The basis of the storyline is the women, or what is happening to the women all over the world. As soon as they fall asleep they become shrouded in a cobwebby type cocoon, and if the webbing is pulled away from their sleeping bodies they savagely attack and kill whoever is in their path.

As the sleeping sickness, Aurora, hits the women’s prison in the small town of Dooling, West Virginia there is one inmate not effected by the virus. She can sleep and wake with no effects at all.

Lila Norcross, Dooling’s sheriff must try to stay awake, with the entire towns women folk all cocooned asleep or soon to be, she has her hands full as the men start to hear rumours of Evie Black, the only woman who isn’t effected by whatever it is that has taken all their wives, mothers and daughters.

Lila’s husband, Dr Clint Norcross, is a psychiatric officer at the prison and when the prison warden Janice Coates succumbs to sleep herself it is left to him to protect the sleeping inmates as well as new inmate Evie.

With the men being left alone with no women, some cannot cope and take their own lives, some decided that the sleeping women should be killed to stop the disease-spreading while the majority turn to violence under the guise of solving the epidemic.

What has happened to the women and girls? Why has this happened? Did Evie Black cause this and if so can she bring the women back?

This book has a bit of everything you love with a Stephen King novel, there is a defiant “The Stand” feel to the book, but it is an animal all of its own!

The writing of the combined father and son is seamless, you quickly find yourself fully immersed in the World of Dooling and the battle of the Aurora plague. It is so well written that you genuinely do care about what happens to some of the characters, even if that means you would like to see them dropped into a fiery cesspit of hell for eternity!

Sometimes with big books they can get repetitive and the endings get dragged out to long, or so over descriptive it becomes tedious, but NOT this book, i could have read another 700 pages without loosing any of the magic! I honestly did not want the book to end!!

This is more of a science fiction and fantasy tinged horror story as opposed to an outright horror so it will appeal to a wider audience, even people who don’t like King’s older work!!

I picked up my first ever Stephen King book when I was 10, IT, and have been a fan ever since, I found a copy of Different Seasons when i was having a sort out and it was a library copy i had taken out on 4th September 1995!! Whoops!

I’m not overly fond of politics, and even if you love politics I can’t understand the reviews this book has received purely based on that! This book is Fiction, it’s not being sold or advertised as anything other than that! So for people to be having a pissing contest because it is to political, read it for what it is – Fiction. One of my favourite reviews is –

“Too political! I don’t enjoy having my president ridiculed constantly. Disgusting!” and “Everything is politics…I have read not even a chapter and I have to see our president compared to a horrible character in the book”

Come on, really? No matter what his or his sons political views are, or what his true feelings are regarding Trump, those lines were written in a work of fiction so read it as fiction. He’s not asking you to believe it is he?? Not in this book anyway!

So please everyone, shove politics and Trump to the side, ignore all the negative reviews and one star ratings, pull up a chair and enjoy a really good, well written five-star story!

Definitely an epic, this doorstop of a book slowly sets the scene of a world without women as they succumb to a strange plague. Like all King novels, this is heavily character driven. Though I would struggle to choose parts to cut, the book feels overly long. I struggled to continue with it in many places, especially once we learn what happens to the women after they’re cocooned, which was when my interest wavered even though I’d survived a communicative fox and other strange creatures appearing, which I saw no reason for. By then I’d invested too much to give up, but this took me ages to finish and I sometimes felt I was turning each page through sheer will. What people get from this will depend on their experiences. Let’s just say I’ve excellent reasons to want to return home, so my viewpoint is no doubt influenced by that choice. The book’s expertly composed, well thought out, and immersive, but I spent much of it wondering if there was a point. Had women written this, I can imagine an outcry that it’s an attack on men… and in that exact sentence is perhaps the point of the book, but while it’s an interesting topic to explore, I found the innate message somewhat flawed. Yes, it examines much of what’s wrong with the world, but I struggle to believe a world ran by women would work better; the same ridiculous power struggles often rise to the fore, no matter who is in charge. This novel is entertaining in parts, not so much in others. It’s explorative. It’s needlessly overlong, not scary, and anyone expecting the usual Stephen King novel may find they are disappointed (or pleased) that it’s not. However, I now want to read something else by Owen King.

What would happen if all women in the world were unconscious? One morning it begins: women and girls in Australia fail to wake from their slumber and are discovered wrapped in gauzy white cocoons. As more and more women and girls fail to wake up, the world begins to panic, and those who are still awake go to extensive lengths to remain so. How are men handling it? Not well.

The initial observation I made during the first few chapters is that all characters, sympathetic and unsympathetic, seem to have a snarky air of superiority. I suspect that is merely King's writing style, but it took some getting used to. The story was entertaining and action-packed, reminiscent of the King I read in my younger years. Overall, though, it was a hefty tome in which a lot happened, while at the same time nothing really happened. For all the heavy-handed messaging throughout, the ending was anticlimactic, inconsequential and disappointing. And it never answered "why?"

After a slow start with way too much exposition, I almost gave up on this one. I did finally get pulled into the weirdness of this world. Fable? Perhaps to tell us that all revolutions are ultimately corrupt? Don’t trust a cat? I was impressed at how King finally pulled it all together after teetering on the edge for so much of it. 3.75½

Cemetery Dance Publications is very pleased to announce our Deluxe Special Limited Edition of Stephen King and Owen King's collaborative novel, Sleeping Beauties.

In this spectacular father/son collaboration, the authors tell the highest of high-stakes stories: what might happen if women disappeared from the world of men?

In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep; they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place... The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Evie a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain?

Set in a small Appalachian town whose primary employer is a women's prison, Sleeping Beauties is a wildly provocative, gloriously absorbing father/son collaboration between Stephen King and Owen King.

The exclusive Cemetery Dance Special Limited Edition will be published in three states, all of them printed in two colors and bound in fine materials, and there will be no second printings.

There were a lot of characters in this novel. In the front of the book was a list of them. The list was not in alphabetical order. It would have been great if it was. It wasn't grouped in order of when the character appeared. That may have been ok. It was grouped by family or occupation, I guess. I took notes of character names as I normally do.
2,647 members; 3.57 average rating; 4/23/2023

Didn’t much care for it.

No rating. DNF.

When nothing happens aside from a murder, and the murder is delivered in such a dull manner, I'm out.

So this author is surrounded by writers in his real life. His wife Kelly Braffet is an author I have read and liked, his Brother Joe Hill's books have been fantastic, his mother Tabitha King is an author, and then of course there is his father Stephen King. So the fact that Owen King decided to be a writer, is really no surprise. What was a surprise was how boring this book was. If you are going to write a book with quirky eccentric characters and a less than conventional storyline like a John Irving, or Wally Lamb book the writing has to be interesting, and pull the reader in from the start. This book has all kinds of creative writing gimmicks- a paragraph that lasts for multiple pages, a plot line within a plot line within a plot line, etc, the problem for me was I didn't care about anyone in the book. I felt like there was an inside story I was not privy to, like an inside joke, and I was looking in but would never be made part of the group. Yes the author can write, but for me the subject and the characters were just one dimensional and not at all interesting.

it was ok, but too long. didn't finish.

A world without women is a world with pretty much only violence. Yep, I'm buying it. I feel people would hate this book had it been written be a woman, but when it's two men, it's fine (eh, I have heard nothing about this book, maybe people are still hating it). They seem to get it though. Some weird phrasings about pussies aside, I like how women are portrayed in the book, and men.

It's not an easy read though, it made me stressed the way Under The Dome did, and I finished that book in like four days, my pulse high the entire time. This took me longer (despite being shorter), but the anxiety was there.

I wish we'd seen something in the end about what the men who had gone around burning as many woman as possible thought afterwards, but I guess that's up to me to imagine ...

All females fall asleep except for 1.

I was really excited when I found this book. I am such a superhero junkie and I was really looking forward to an entire anthology of superhero short stories. What a letdown. Most anthologies are a mixed bag but this one contained more stories that I didn't really enjoy than most. Honestly, I can probably only remember a few of the stories - and the one I remember most vividly I hated. I should have checked this out of the library instead of buying.

On Stephen King’s recent tour to promote his book, End of Watch, the author shared that he has collaborated on a novel with his son, Owen called Sleeping Beauties. The book is set in a women’s prison in West Virginia. A first draft has been completed and the book is expected to be released in 2017.

A book by Stephen King in co-work with his son set in a women's prison in West Virginia? Yes, I'm totally hoping this might be a female counterpart to [b:Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption|39664|Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption A Story from Different Seasons|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1315100686s/39664.jpg|24951203], and yes, I totally can't wait to read this.

Edit (03/19/17):
The synopsis to this novel has been published and it does not exactly sound the way I originally expected it, but that certainly doesn't change anything about my excitement for this novel.

Classic and yet not Classic Stephen King. Long book but I enjoyed every minute of it!

There’s a really good book at the heart of Sleeping Beauties, but unfortunately that books is a good 400 pages shorter than the behemoth that the Kings have produced. There’s just too much filler here, and too many characters, only a few of whom really come to life on the page. I found myself wishing the book over, which is never a good sign.

I both read and listened to this book. It is enormous but engrossing. It is definitely a book you want to plan the reading of, (I ended up making a daily goal for it). I first attempted listening to it, (the narration was impressive. Seriously, get an Audible copy). Then I was able to get a hard copy from the library and started over, alternating between the two.
The story was extremely interesting for me. My family is from the area where it is set. I wish I could say that some of the setting wasn’t accurate but, with the current drug issues, sadly it was. With a setting I knew and characters I might, I was easily sucked into the story. I really enjoyed it when “ Our Place,” came in to the story. That was interesting and the ending was an incredible ride. The book seems more like drama than horror to me. Though I would be freaked if women were to fall asleep inside cocoons. I will choose to leave it there as I don’t want to spoil the story by mentioning other aspects that freaked me out. There were plenty of moments of horror but mostly I saw the story as drama. It didn’t keep me up, terrified to sleep, like earlier works did. But I was invested early and stayed invested to the end. It is interesting to read of this during a time when men and women are struggling to find balance in this “equality” for all society.
I enjoyed the story. It was fun to read a story written by father and son. I have read, and am a fan of, Joe Hill, (I loved seeing him get a nod). This is my first time reading Owen King. He didn’t disappoint me and I am interested in reading other work by him. It is amazing how much writing talent is in this family, (though somewhat expected given both parents are excellent storytellers). I would recommend the book though I would caution not to expect the horror of previous books like The Shining or It. I think if you go in knowing that, you will be able to enjoy the story more.

It was good. The first half of Sleeping Beauties was full of action. In the second half of the book, it slowed down. Still, I couldn't stop listening. I listening to most of the 21 CDs over 3 days. I think I will listen to the book again and appreciate it more.

If I were to give a reader a guide, it would be the following: Take a picture of the life of the character before the event. Compare the picture to life during the event. Compare the picture of after the event.

This book written with Own King has a different flavor than a solo written Stephen King book. I bet it is different than a solo Owen King book. It is a blend I would like to taste again.

Could of condensed a few pages but over all recommend it to any SK fan!