Another good one from Stephen King (and this time from his son, Owen). I have been a King fan for years and usually enjoy his novels with a few exceptions. This was another of his long epic stories clocking in at over 900 pages in the large print edition that I read. Overall, it kept me reading and turning the pages even though I thought it probably could have been edited down by a couple of hundred pages.
The story is about what happens when Aurora (named after the princess in Sleeping Beauty) hits the population. Aurora is an unexplained phenomenon that encases most of the women on earth in a cocoon-like shroud as soon as they fall asleep. Some women are able to stay awake longer than others through sheer force of will, insomnia, or the use of drugs, but most are down for the count. And then if you try to awaken the women by cutting through the cocoon, they turn into crazed rabid-like zombies, killing whoever awakes them. However, there is one woman named Evie, who appears to be immune to Aurora. But who is this woman and what is her purpose in this world-wide event?
Most of the events take place in a small town in Appalachia and in its nearby Women's Prison where Evie has been sent for observation after she killed two meth dealers. But when the general male population finds out about her, they feel that she must be taken and studied so things may possibly return to normal. And being typical males, they resort to violence to achieve this.
I felt that this novel was an allegory by King showing the present state of the world, the U.S., and its politics. This includes women's rights and the treatment of women, gun violence, race relations, etc. Trump is mentioned by name in the novel and I know by reading King's twitter feeds that he is not a fan of Trump or his politics. The novel has a lot of characters, good and bad, and they were sometimes hard to keep track of, but a listing of all the characters is included at the front of the book to help with this. I would definitely recommend this one but again I thought it could have been trimmed down quite a bit.
The story is about what happens when Aurora (named after the princess in Sleeping Beauty) hits the population. Aurora is an unexplained phenomenon that encases most of the women on earth in a cocoon-like shroud as soon as they fall asleep. Some women are able to stay awake longer than others through sheer force of will, insomnia, or the use of drugs, but most are down for the count. And then if you try to awaken the women by cutting through the cocoon, they turn into crazed rabid-like zombies, killing whoever awakes them. However, there is one woman named Evie, who appears to be immune to Aurora. But who is this woman and what is her purpose in this world-wide event?
Most of the events take place in a small town in Appalachia and in its nearby Women's Prison where Evie has been sent for observation after she killed two meth dealers. But when the general male population finds out about her, they feel that she must be taken and studied so things may possibly return to normal. And being typical males, they resort to violence to achieve this.
I felt that this novel was an allegory by King showing the present state of the world, the U.S., and its politics. This includes women's rights and the treatment of women, gun violence, race relations, etc. Trump is mentioned by name in the novel and I know by reading King's twitter feeds that he is not a fan of Trump or his politics. The novel has a lot of characters, good and bad, and they were sometimes hard to keep track of, but a listing of all the characters is included at the front of the book to help with this. I would definitely recommend this one but again I thought it could have been trimmed down quite a bit.
