Sleeping Beauties, Vol. 1 (Graphic Novel)

Sleeping Beauties, Stephen King’s 2017 novel, has been rewritten in the comic book format. King’s book is, to a degree, relevant and similar to the coronavirus epidemic currently sweeping the country. In Sleeping Beauties, America is experiencing an epidemic labeled the aurora virus that covers women with a white, sticky substance once they’ve fallen asleep. Mysteriously, the women do not appear to be dead but merely sleeping; meanwhile, riots occur in major cities led by men at a loss for what to do. Amid the chaos, a mysterious lady known as Evie claims to have some information about the virus and how to stop it.

This comic book edition of Sleeping Beauties proved to be a useful time-saver for this reviewer, who is usually in a time crunch, as the original novel is over seven hundred pages in length. True to previous Stephen King novels, the story contains explicit language, with fantasy, sexual assault, violence, and feminism interspersed. Despite the negativity, the story left me craving volume two and the answers to the mystery of the white substance and who Evie might be.