I miss 1970's Stephen King. The guy who used to tell great horror stories. The guy who I couldn't read late at night without shaking and checking under the bed. The guy who I wanted to be. However, I have only seen that Stephen King in the Mr. Mercedes series. Elevation, while an interesting idea, was not a great story.
 
Elevation is about a man, Scott Carey, who starts to lose weight, for no reason, and without help. He gorges on food, but still loses weight. He comes to the aid of a couple, a lesbian couple to be exact, who have opened a Mexican restaurant. No one wants to eat there because they don't approve of the lifestyle of the women. Once Scott enters and helps DeeDee win a marathon, they become friends, and try to figure out how to help Scott. Along with a local retired doctor and his wife, the friends try their hardest to help Scott, before he loses so much weight he dies.
 
Elevation is a character study and a story about how friendships form more than anything else. It is an easy read, but I think that may be more the formatting of the book rather than the book itself. While the characters were interesting, they were also a little flat. We don't get to know much about anyone outside Mr. Scott Carey. We learn a little about the lesbian couple, and we learn a little less about the doctor and his wife. There are things in the book that seem like assumed knowledge. It almost seems as if we already have the information, we just aren't smart enough to understand what is going on or what we might be missing.
 
Unfortunately, Elevation isn't told with King's normal descriptions or interest. It seems as if this was a book that was written to fill space, as it was small, and not the most descriptive. Even now, after having finished it, I can't tell you what any of the characters look like, besides the fact that throughout Scott was noticed to be overweight in stature. It was a constant point, that written about, that he was losing weight but his looks hadn't changed, and he looked the same as he always has.
 
I bought this book because it was on sale at Barnes and Noble, but I don't think I would recommend it or have bought it if I knew how it was going to read. The idea behind the book was interesting, but I also felt that a lot of it verged on a previous King novel, Thinner.

If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home by Tim O'Brien is a harsh look at war and what it meant to be subjected to Vietnam when you are an unwilling participant.
 
This is the true story of O'Brien' s experience as he was drafted into the war, and his own feelings as he tried to figure a way out. Instead of finding a way out he found part of himself he didn't know existed. Of course, this didn't mean he was happy about it, nor did he start thinking he was a willing or good soldier. Yet, O'Brien survived while so many he was with didn't. There is a bit of mourning in the book, as O'Brien describes each death, some with heart behind it and some with a sense of normalcy.
 
I enjoyed this book, but not as much as I enjoyed his novel The Things They Carried. While I understand The Things They Carried was most likely fiction, I felt there was a little more heart in it, which may be part of how the stories work. I mean, if we look at the two books, the deaths of some of the soldiers are described as if they just happened, and this might be how it is when one is in actual war. One death becomes another death and another death is only one more day. War causes people to become numb to life and death, but often to hope for more life.
 
This was an honest look at a young man, and his torn ideologies, and not wanting to disappoint his family. He tries to be okay with going to Vietnam, but he also tries to figure out a way to Canada, and someplace far away. I feel that many people might benefit from reading this book as it has insights about what a soldier might feel on his way to war. I feel especially these days, as we continue to send young men and women to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, that it might give insight to people who know little to nothing about the military.
 
Now, this isn't to say this is the experience of every military member, as some are proud to go to war and represent the country. However, there are a lot of books out there about the honored soldier, and the man who died serving his country. There aren't a lot of books out there that represent those who are unwilling participants.
 
While I didn't enjoy this as much as I did The Things They Carried, I did enjoy it.

I am excited to say that I will be going to see a reading with Tim O'Brien in April. I can't wait to see the man who has enchanted me with his tales of Vietnam (and not in a wow, I want to go to Vietnam and war is cool type of way).

I was torn between recommending and not recommending Dollhouse by Tim Miller. I will be honest, my problem wasn't with the writing, mostly. The story revolves around Jodi, a woman who has a bad attitude at times, and a needy, or strong attitude at other. Ernie Lester is a man on a mission, to build a dollhouse full of his new family. He loves his family, and he believes that his family loves him, even though they can't respond to his questions or advances. Ernie meets Jodi one day and can't get her out of his mind, so he decides to make Jodi one more addition to his dollhouse.
 
This is registered as extreme horror, and I expected a little more graphic violence throughout. I wondered if it was extreme because of how many "fucks" were said throughout, but even the rape scenes seemed a little toned down, especially if you have read authors like Edward Lee and Richard Laymon. I honestly would have like a little more direct and explicit violence, and I would have liked a little more brutality. In the book there were three main characters, Jodi, Ernie, and Bob. Bob adds an element of brutality, but he doesn't quite go there enough. I also would have liked a little more backstory to the characters. Parts of the story were just a little confusing as Ernie states that all of his issues started when there was a death in his family, but another minor character states that it was a different death that changed who he was, and so we never really know what started him collecting his dolls. We never really know why he chooses Bob to be his buddy after a time either.
 
That being said, my big issues with this were the bad grammar and wording throughout. I hate the continuous use of the word "just" as it often doesn't need to be there, or can be replaced with "only." There were several misspelled words. or the use of the wrong word. The characters all spoke the same, so the dialogue started to run together and it didn't differentiate the characters enough from one another. In fact, I wished that one or the other would use a word besides "fuck." Ernie kept saying that he had been doing this for a long time, but the reader is never given any insight as to how long. However, even with all of this, I could have read the book and not had issue with it. My main issue with this book is that the spacing was double or triple per page, and the end of each chapter was like three to five lines in the middle of a separate page, which made this a fast and frustrating read. I feel like, for this version, it was a waste of money as a book that claims to be 206, if formatted properly, would have been under 100 pages. This type of formatting doesn't make indie authors look good, and it causes people not to by a book written by an indie author.
 
Now I know Tim Miller has done well for himself, and this is in no way meant to cut him down. He has been successful, and continues to be successful, making sure he continues to write a new book as often as he can, and going to as many conventions to help stay known and relevant. I admire him for that. And, this book was not a bad read, although I could have used a little more depth, and less of a predictable ending.
 
I really wasn't a fan of the formatting, and I personally found the errors and the formatting very distracting. I can't say I do or don't recommend book by Tim Miller, as several of them sound interesting. I, personally, might let this book percolate before picking up another.

I enjoy a lot of what Joe Hill writes, in fact NOS4A2 was a favorite of mine. I really enjoyed it, and decided I needed to read more of Joe Hill's works. I didn't care for Heart Shaped Box, but I have to say I did enjoy some of the stories in 20th Century Ghosts. The first and second stories were my favorite. The title of the first was "20th Century Ghost" and the second story title was "Pop Art." The first story was about a woman who haunted a movie theater, and the second story was about a boy whose best friend was an inflatable boy. Both stuck with me and were very good, very interesting, and made me wish I wrote at least the second one. There were some hits and misses among the other stories, but besides "My Father's Mask" and "The Black Phone" they weren't really spooky, frightening, or even suspenseful.
 
My issue with a lot of these short stories were that a lot of them ended by not ending. They were open ended or they suggested that there was more to the story. My least favorite story was "Abraham's Boys" which may or may not have been about vampires and Van Helsing. It was unclear if the father was a vampire, was somehow related to Drac, or how he might have been related to Mina. The two children remind me of the children in the movie Frailty, and how the father in the movie treated his two sons, one son who believed him, and one son who thought his father was insane. It was the same with Abraham's two sons. One son believes that there are vampires and believes that their father is a protector (maybe), and the other son, who doesn't know of the old country or doesn't remember things from the old country, and he believes in what is true for most American kids, that most monsters are the things of legend. Now, what happened in the end was a little startling, and I thought creative, but it lead to more questions.
 
I'm not sure I would recommend this, but since these are short stories, and it is a fast read, I'd recommend at least trying it. Sometimes, especially with short stories, people have differing reactions, or thoughts on a story. One person might like one story, while another person might hate that same story. So, if you like horror, or suspense, and you don't mind reading things that make you think a little, read this.