Sleeping Beauties

by Mavis Cheek

Tabitha's Beauty Parlour is a haven. The women who cross its portals enter a perfumed world where never a hard note is struck. To Tabitha, Beauty is a broad canvas from which she will draw out what she can. But when Chloe, Tabitha's trainee, sets out to prove that she can give her clients the makeover of a lifetime, the quest for feminine perfection achieves hilarious consequences...

Genres: Fiction, Chick Lit, British Literature, Adult Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Born in Wimbledon, now part of London, Mavis left school at 16 to do office work with Editions Alecto, a Kensington publishing company. She later moved to the firm's gallery in Albemarle Street, where she met artists such as David Hockney, Allen Jones, Patrick Caulfield and Gillian Ayres. In 1969 she married a "childhood sweetheart", Chris Cheek, a physicist, whom she had met at a meeting of the Young Communist League in New Malden, but they separated three years later. Later she lived for eleven years with the artist Basil Beattie. She returned to education in 1976, doing a two-year arts course at Hillcroft College, a further education college for women.

Although Cheek had planned to take a degree course, she turned instead to fiction writing while her daughter, Bella Beattie, was a child. She moved from London to Aldbourne in the Wiltshire countryside in 2003, but as she explained to a newspaper, "Life in the city was a comparative breeze. Life in the country is tough, a little bit dangerous and not for wimps."

Cheek has been involved with the Marlborough LitFest, and also teaches creative writing. This has included voluntary work at Holloway and Erlstoke prisons. As she described in an article: "What I see [at Erlstoke] is reflected in my own experience. Bright, overlooked, unconfident men who are suddenly given the opportunity to learn grow wings, and dare to fail. It helps to be able to tell them that I, too, was once designated thick by a very silly [education] system. My prisoners have written some brilliant stuff, and perhaps it gives them back some self-esteem."

Reviews

[Anastasiya M · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tabitha runs a Beauty Parlour. She takes pride in the work that she does and makes sure that every women that enters the portal is taken care of to their liking, never a hard note said to them and a note to never get too personal.

Full review: https://sincerelyyoursannie.com/2021/...

[Judy · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, this was a quirky little book which started out almost alarmingly sickly sweet with the proprietor of a beauty salon/spa who has an entire philosophy of beauty which seems incredibly old fashioned. She is training someone to work in her shop, and perhaps eventually take it over, but she's having a bit of a tough go because her apprentice has a distinctly different philosophy, and a vocabulary level which needs some major upgrades. So far, so normal. But then the apprentice is told she needs to do three makeovers on her own with no supervision in order to be considered ready to take over the business. She picks out three women (whose stories we've been following along with the story of the shop) and is determined to make them over. Her idea of their needs and ideal beauty image then go a bit off track and it becomes a dark story of women doing all the wrong things to attract men. The ending of the book is either a typo, or extremely strange as the same incident of the former owner of the spa having a drink on the beach repeats word for word several times. And then it was over. Odd...

[Kashmira · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read it nearly 10 years ago and still find it to be a funny, clever satire on middle-age, loneliness and ideas of beauty ... Giving it 3 stars as it is hard to follow the prose sometimes (especially Tabitha's musings) and due to some outdated jokes and comments.. still a fun summer read that will always remain on my bookshelf ..

[Karen Edgecombe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sleeping Beauties

I found this to be dark and depressing. I did read the whole thing, but found not one shred of light within.

[Catherine Pia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up in Insomnia Dunlaoghaire to read over my coffee. Ended up engrossed and borrowed it to finish. A charming read.

[Reading Fury · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strange and disturbing, the goings on at Tabitha's Beauty Parlor far exceed facials and waxes. Tabitha is growing older and battling gravity. Time to turn the parlor over to the next successor. But is Chloe ready or even the right person? How much change is a good thing? Although the parlor represents beauty and the effort to create and preserve it, the underlying desperation of each women in the many subplots is very discomfiting--not necessarily untrue, but not altogether a mere matter of making the most of what you have. Part illusion and delusion, sex is traded, dreams take off, and we ultimately question what is worth valuing. I don't know that I liked this book. I have thought of it from time to time well after reading it, but more in a cautionary way or to compare it to more kindly developed plots, and it doesn't always hold up. The frothy ending is a slap in the face to all that comes before.

[scarlettraces · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrifying. Best moment was definitely the one involving Tabitha's handbag.

(I haven't kept up with Cheek's later novels - this one happened to be sitting on my bookshelf - but I'm guessing by the bemused comments on this one that they're less darkly comic. It maybe needs a satire warning on the front cover?)

[Susanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm. It was fine as a very light holiday read, frivolous and funny. But I expected more - I had pleasant memories of reading Patrick Parker's Progress, and also Yesterday's Houses. As a foray into chick-lit it worked well enough, though.

[Kristyh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing after I enjoyed Amenable Women so much. According to reviews on this site however, this is not Ms Cheek's best work, so I will give her another chance down the track.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to give up on this book, just couldn't get into it!

[Gillie · Rating 2 out of 5]

errr not that impressed but ok I suppose. I have read others of hers which were better.
This was a bit disappointing and a bit odd.