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.
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.
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