Book Review: Elevation by Stephen King

The only elevation I felt from this was from my hand as I lifted this book over the trashcan and tossed it in the garbage.

There are no mincing words here: this book sucks.

Stephen King's novella about a man seemingly losing weight every day despite looking overweight is one full of stereotypes, bland scenarios, and meaningless messages. There are sprinkles of King's writing style and prose, but it truly does not read like King wrote this and I would avoid this thing at all costs.

I can sense the good intentions in this story, but they're so generalized and loosely explored that it feels like a BB pellet ricocheting off the side of an M1 Abrams. King's message of "we should all just get along" is a nice one that I think everyone would agree with, but the manner in which it's conveyed in Elevation, is incredibly uninteresting and achieved with little to no conflict.

The main issue comes in the form of the main character, Scott. King has written a character whose defining character trait is also his biggest and most obnoxious fault: Scott is simply too nice.

His mysterious affliction of losing weight without physically changing comes off as more of benefit than anything else; and while most people would feel fear over this intense change, Scott feels elated. This resulted in me feeling no connection to Scott. This could be excused if his personality was anything to champion, but he mainly comes off as the intrusive, can't-take-a-hint nice guy that will constantly push people with niceties until he gets his way... which he does in this story and it feels undeserved.

Case in point: His relationship with his lesbian neighbor, Deidre. Deidre is a married lesbian who is struggling with her restaurant's success because of her sexuality. His main goal is to make good with this neighbor over a dispute with her dogs pooping on his lawn. Ultimately, his solution is to make a wager with her over a town race: if he wins, she has to join him for dinner. Her reason for running the race is to bring in more customers if she wins since it would be a big piece of publicity... and Scott knows this.

So was Scott's plan to sabotage her? She ends up winning the race, but she still ends up at his house because he helps her during the race when she trips to look back at him catching up to her. She would have won if Scott hadn't been there to distract her. His involvement was only beneficial to himself, yet in the end everyone got what they wanted because she won. Wouldn't she have gotten the publicity if she won anyways? It's implied that since Scott was there, the final photo of three of them may have detracted from the fact she was a lesbian, but townsfolk still filled the restaurant afterwards. The whole setup was sloppy, ridiculous, and also very boring to read.

I can go on and on about how the dialogue is laughable and how the book seriously suffers from a case of "all tell and no show," but I think I'll end this review with a description of the final scene which felt like it belonged in a Monty Python skit rather than a Stephen King book.

Scott sits strapped to a wheelchair, because his weight has now reached zero. He asks Deidre to release his straps so that he may float away into the night. She does so and as this fat man reaches high into the air, he lights fireworks in his hands and explodes in a shower of red, blue, and golden sparks while his friends look on in tears.

Tears were in my eyes too. Not from sorrow or pain, but from laughter and joy that I'll never have to read this book again.

2/5 but only because there was a cat in the story.