by Stephen King
First published 2017
Women across the world begin falling into deep sleeps, their bodies wrapped in strange cocoon-like material. When men try to wake them, tearing the gauze triggers savage attacks before the women retreat back into slumber. The sleeping women transport to another realm, leaving behind a world populated only by increasingly desperate men. Society crumbles as these abandoned males resort to violence and chaos. Only one woman remains immune to this epidemic. Evie stays awake while all others succumb to the mysterious condition. The remaining men face a critical choice about Evie's fate. Some view her as a scientific specimen who might hold the cure. Others believe she caused the plague and must die. As tensions escalate between these factions, Evie becomes the center of a war that will determine whether the women ever return. The story explores what happens when half of humanity disappears overnight and the other half must confront their true nature.
Genres: dystopia, fantasy, horror, contemporary, dark-fantasy, apocalyptic
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: chosen-one, enemies-to-lovers, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: World
Period: 21st-Century
702 pages · Hardcover · Scribner
Content warnings: anxiety, depression, mental-illness