Sleeping Beauties in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Nov 01, 2017 Jennifer rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: from-library, fiction

Fresh off of declaring, "Horror is just not my thing," what do I read next?

I've been thinking lately about horror I enjoy versus horror I don't enjoy, which made me nostalgic for my Stephen King phase, plus I kept hearing interesting buzz about the concept of this novel, so onto my hold list it went.

This monster of a book kind of absorbed my entire life, which it would have to for me to finish all 702 pages in three days. I am still kind of processing how I feel about it.

Don't go into this book Fresh off of declaring, "Horror is just not my thing," what do I read next?

I've been thinking lately about horror I enjoy versus horror I don't enjoy, which made me nostalgic for my Stephen King phase, plus I kept hearing interesting buzz about the concept of this novel, so onto my hold list it went.

This monster of a book kind of absorbed my entire life, which it would have to for me to finish all 702 pages in three days. I am still kind of processing how I feel about it.

Don't go into this book expecting any kind of thorough critique of gender. Despite the entire book being about an affliction that affects all women and only women, there is nary a mention of trans men or trans women, which is something I think people would definitely be interested in in this situation. There are some very over-simplified "men are this way, women are this way" bits, but all from character POVs that make sense. You do sometimes wish for one woke folk to stand up and say, "it's our societal definitions of gender rather than biological determinism that yields the behavior you're describing," but, nope.

The whole thing could not be more perfectly timed though, published in the wake of the Weinstein scandal when every few days some new bigwig/actor/director/writer is outed and shamed as a rapist/harasser. It's hard not to root for the cocooned women who blindly dismember those who disturb their rest.

One thing that was weird about the book was how often a character would suddenly say or think something about being black, and every time my reaction was, "Wait, they're black?" and I would scramble across chapters and chapters of that character existing in the story looking for any clue or mention of ethnicity. It was especially odd because it usually came up in a "how being black has shaped my life" thought. HOW MUCH CAN IT HAVE SHAPED THEIR LIFE IF YOU HAVE GIVEN US NOT ONE INDICATION OF SUCH UP UNTIL THIS POINT? DOES THEIR RACE MATTER OR DOESN'T IT? DO YOU EVEN KNOW?

I think naming the agent of disturbance in this story Evie without ever really deciding if there is a Biblical Eve, or Biblical God, and just borrowing that imagery without making it really consistent was unnecessarily messy.

Despite all this, I actually really enjoyed reading it. It was like someone put Orange is the New Black, Justified, and The Stand in a blender with some moths. And I like 3 out of 4 of those things. (Still have never seen/read OINTB.) I liked the sheriff and the book club ladies and the puppy love and the women discovering each other's hidden skills in Our Place and Angel the homicidal maniac.

A good creepy read for Halloween. Horror still isn't really my thing, though. ...more

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Oct 09, 2017 Mia rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-books

Wow a giant brick of a book. I liked it but I didn't love it. Way too many characters... by the end I couldn't even keep them straight. But the story was interesting even though it could have been a couple hundred pages shorter. ...more

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Jan 19, 2018 Ally rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018-challenge

Ok. You all should know by know that I'm a Stephen King fan girl - he was one of the first "adult" authors I read and I loved every book. I still do - I think his later stuff is still as compelling. But this one, man - it was a SLOG. I'm not sure if it's because he's co-authoring with his son (I've not read any of Owen's solo work) or because the story/characters were not that great but it took every bit of my Faithful Reader stamina to finish this (702 page!) behemoth. I have higher expectation ...more

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Mar 23, 2018 LT rated it liked it · review of another edition

I'm disappointed in the payoff on this one. As you can see from the start to finish date, I dragged myself through this tome. The concept was fascinating and the gore and suspense sat well just as a King book should but there were some off notes towards the end that did not resonate. I don't regret reading it but should have left it for my summer reading pile. ...more

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