Number of Pages: 715
Genre: Horror, fantasy
One day all the women in the world start to fall asleep as normal, but they do not wake up. Instead, as soon as they fall asleep they grow a web-like cocoon , and react with mindless, murderous violence if the webbing is cut or broken. In the small town of Dooling, West Virginia, a strange woman appears who has superhuman powers of strength and healing, has knowledge about people that she could not possibly possess and, most of all, can sleep and wake as normal. As a rapidly decreasing number of women stay awake to combat "Aurora" (as the mysterious syndrome is called), men face up to a world without women. Meanwhile, the women wake up to a strange world, entirely without men. Can the women find their way back? More to the point, do they want to?
This is a pretty gripping novel, it focuses mainly on the small town of Dooling, and the women's prison in the town. It comes from a simple, but quite fascinating premise: How would men be in a world without women? And what would a world without men be like? It's a timely novel, which does not shy away from contemporary resonance (some books wear there politics on their sleeves, this one pretty much has it on the front of it's tee-shirt). However while it is thought-provoking, it also succeeds in being fun. despite it's length it keeps you reading. It's dark, funny and suspenseful with a range of interesting and mostly likeable, although there are a fair few straight-forward villains. Of course, Stephen King is the most popular writer of our time, and here he teams up with his son, Owen, although the novel's voice is pretty consistent, and reads throughout like a Stephen King novel - however I have never read any of Owen King's other works, and so I do not know what his style is. Some of the storylines in the book are unsatisfying, and there are a few plotlines that seem to be building up early and are then abandoned. However, this is a good book and well worth your time.
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