Wow, where do I start? First, I get it. It was a good thought--i.e. what would happen if one gender was gone? This wasn't anything new. We saw something similar with "Left Behind".
The dialogue was absolutely horrible. Everyone sounded the same and seriously lacked any intellect. An elderly lady saying "Yippie"? Wow. I wish I had a digital copy of this book as I would love to count the number of times a particular 4 letter word was used in the book (it begins with F and ends with K). I think every character in the book uttered that word at some point.
I also think this book made a concerted effort to include as many catch phrases as possible. One of my initial issues was with folks swinging from one extreme to another and within the blink of an eye. One question I kept hoping I would get an answer--i.e. why were the women trying to stay awake? Are we to believe Aurora was of concern only for Dooling? The world is filled with male scientists but a plastic surgeon in Dooling is the only one able to make any discoveries? (I'm referencing his discovery with burning the cocoon/strands). BTW, how big of a town is Dooling if it has its own resident plastic surgeon? Back to my question--i.e. why were the women trying to stay awake? Ok, I can understand there are some women who may need to stay awake for as long as possible but we've got women in prison trying to stay awake. Is the answer 'because no one understood or knew anything about Aurora?' Umm, this affected the entire world. Wouldn't places (medical facilities) have already established some of the obvious ... including the obvious of 'they ain't dead'? Wouldn't this be similar to a coma? Ok, I get that Lila would need to try and stick it out ... she's the sheriff for gosh sake. But am I to believe a sheriff on drugs has a prayer at being productive in performing law enforcement duties (and in a crisis situation to boot)?
Oh, let me get this out of the way as well. I had to laugh at the miserable failure of the evidence Lila collected accusing her husband of fathering another child. When their son looked at the picture and couldn't see the "obvious" resemblance Lila swore was there, I had to do a double take. This is a 20 year law enforcement officer. Was this an example of that law enforcement office's investigative skills? And speaking of Dooling's law enforcement office, am I to believe they don't have emergency response procedures which establishes chain of command and whatnots?
The book suffered, in my opinion, when it tried to include real world instances such as mentioning 9/11, which, in law enforcement, is huge in terms of responding to disasters. I won't bother commenting on Terry, the alcoholic. He's 2nd in command, worked at the law enforcement office before Lila joined but is inept and opts to drinking (heavily) which he didn't seem to do prior. (Ok, I did comment. LOL) This story was poorly done and could have benefited from some research. The deck was stacked. "All men are bad and violent. All women have been abused and taken advantage of." We all could close our eyes and finish the book just from reading the initial pages. Even Eve Black hated men. It struck me as funny how the men of the world couldn't carry own once Aurora started. No one went to work. No one opened any stores. Businesses stopped. Men couldn't do laundry, shave, etc. It was interesting Dooling only had a women's prison. I wonder where men went when they were sent to prison; out of town, maybe? But the story stated men were bad and violent so why did Dooling have a women's prison? (Duh, because the story needed it! Silly me.) A point of the story was women didn't have a say. So, Our World gave women a place where they had a say. What about the rest of the women of the world? What I mean is the decision rested with only the women of Dooling in Our World in terms of whether they would return or not return and it had to be unanimous. The point was the men would not give the women a voice (yeah, I know, loved how they made sure Lila reminded Clint about the pool to further show how the women were mistreated in the real world). So, the women who were still asleep during all of this didn't get a say in whether they wanted to wake up in Our World or wake up in the real world.
I'll wrap this up with one more. Clint and Frank. Another pair of characters who are "gung-hoed" one minute and "I don't know" the next. Frank's goal was to collect Eve Black and bring in doctors from ... out of town<?> (apparently, the only doctors in Dooling MUST be women since the story only talked about the local hospital when Frank was taking his daughter there).
Why didn't Frank get the doctor (or doctors) and have them go to the prison? I found none of the characters of any interest.
Lila's goof with facial features (20 years of law enforcement!) was just too silly.
Clint's internal rage at everybody (including Lila) seemed to come out of nowhere. Clint was certainly the most sex deprived character in the book. When he asked Lila if she met anyone in Our World after the women came back, I started laughing wondering where that came from. Near the end, there was the bit of him sexually fantasizing about Eve Black.
Geez. Oh, forgot about Fleckenger<sp?>. Frank chops down his front door with an axe and the next thing they are BFFs? Oh come on! After reading this book, I wanted so badly to re-read Revival, Doctor Sleep, End of Watch, anything. I needed to find comfort in a really good book. lol.
On a slightly positive note, I also purchased the audiobook and remembered it included an audio conversation with MR. Stephen King and Owen King. I learned the original plan was to make it a mini tv series. Owen noted they shot 2 episodes, including the pilot, but chose to write the book first.
Knowing this, the number of characters in the book made sense. I will say this, knowing what I know now, I would have still read the book as I am too big of a Stephen King fan ... just wish it wasn't so bad.
Anywho, just my loose thoughts.