The literary world is quite familiar with the name ‘Stephen King’. With each new book, the author brings a whole new level of excitement to horror readers. With the name ‘Sleeping Beauties’ your attention is drawn towards epic fantasy written for children, but be careful because this book is actually quite scary when it comes to concept.

What if one day women disappeared from this world? In Sleeping Beauties, women around the world begin to fall asleep never to wake up again. The moment they sleep, a cocoon-shaped gauze wraps their bodies. If someone tries to disturb or damage the cocoon, what awakens is not the woman herself, but a wild creature that is purely a killing machine. The pandemic soon begins to spread and fear begins to grow among the people. No one knows the cause and everyone seems desperate, as a cure does not emerge until a mysterious woman, Evie, begins to gain prominence. Apparently, she is the only woman who can wake up after sleeping and knows a lot about it.

The only problem with the book is the long list of characters that are mentioned at the beginning of the book. For many readers, keeping track of more than 70 characters can be a bit difficult, especially when not all of them play a significant role in the overall plot. Reading their backstories and following character development seemed pointless when in the end they just didn’t matter. These useless characters, if removed, could have made the entire narrative sharper by removing around a hundred pages.

Other than that, Stephen King and Owen King have done a great job with such a unique concept that it also conveys an important message. As more and more women begin to sleep, it creates discomfort among men. They start acting crazy to the point that a simple rumor suggesting that the infection is contagious is enough for some men to start burning the cocoons. The way it has been narrated is gruesome and shocking.

When you get to the end, you realize that the father-son duo have basically tried to cheer the women up through the complex story. It all comes down to how men are extremely comfortable waging wars to solve anything, while women are the ones bearing the burden and making sacrifices. You wonder: what if your children grew up in a world full of women? Could women create a better world?

Overall, Sleeping Beauties is a bit stuffy and bursting with characters, but the concept and climax make it all worth it.