i feel like a bit of a poser whenever i read and review a stephen king novel because i picked him up so late in my reading life, and for reasons that are pretty dumb. he writes horror novels! he’s a weirdo! his writing is scary! he looks like a weirdo!
whatever. get over it. just pick up a book of his. 
want an easy place to start? “the green mile.” “shawshank redemption.” “the body (lean on me).” they’re all familiar to you. 
so, i picked up his latest book, “sleeping beauties,” which he co-wrote with his son. when i first started reading it, i thought, Oh! i can totally tell this is more owen than stephen king. but then i got more into the storyline and was like, ok – this has gone full stephen.
i’ll try to give an overview without getting into spoilers because this is a great book. what i love about SK novels is that i KNOW there is always going to be some supernatural thing crop up eventually at the root of any scariness, so it’s expected now.
so it was with sleeping beauties.
premise of the book: all women are made to go into a deep slumber and not awaken before this one thing happens. it’s a pretty telling story about society and what would happen if women did suddenly decide to take a vacation from life. 
there are characters you hate, there are characters you love, and there are characters that i wondered were really supposed to be written that way (writing female characters from a male eye is always a questionable thing in my mind. women are not THAT CONSCIOUS of their boobs. they’re just not. i’m not going to notice my shirt caressing the sideboob. not happening.)
but what was really exciting for me about this book was the build-up to the climax, which i don’t think i’ve gotten with any other SK novel quite like this one. i’ve gotten great build-up from other authors, just not him. it was really exciting to see how things came together and what was happening. i was glad when the baddies had it coming. i was sad when the good guys lost. and i was hopeful yet melancholy for the bittersweet ending. 
I keep telling people to pick up a king book. you won’t be disappointed. and if you want to get a story that you’re not familiar with for your first read, this is a good option.