Review: Sleeping Beauties
Gaby Meares
714 pages…..seriously? Please, please, please Mr King - do us all a favour and get yourself a skilled editor.
I love big books and I cannot lie - however, this did not need to be a big book! ‘The Stand’ did; so did ‘It’, but this just had waaayyyy too much information about waaayyy too many people. No wonder it required a list of characters at the beginning, which did sound alarm bells for me.
Enough about the size of this door-stopper, what about the plot? Well, I’m afraid there’s nothing really new here. You have the really good guys, and the really bad guys, who have a BIG battle; with a dash of characters who will be redeemed by the end of the novel, and a sprinkle of fairy-dust in the shape of a magical tree, surrounded by mystical creatures.
This had a number of elements that I did like: the whole ‘mother earth’ message was different for King, and he does know how to create great leading characters with plenty of flaws that make you want to be their buddy; and he can describe bloodshed in graphic detail like no-one else. But the sum total of the positives does not outweigh the negatives.
Oh, and it-was-not-scary!!
Maybe writing with his son is not a recipe for success?
I hate to say this, but I was disappointed.