Buncombe Brief Book Review: Elevation by Stephen King

I am a big Stephen King fan, but not all of his work is a shining example of brilliant horror or storytelling.  While I’ll read anything he produces, I really love a lot of his old work but there are a few newer tales that are great reads.  However, for me, Elevation was just okay.  Mind you, it’s worth a read so don’t shy away, but being a shorter work, a novella, it’s a little fast and forced for my liking.

The story surrounds Scott Carey, who seems perfectly normal on the outside, looks the same and all that, but he begins to get lighter.  His body is the same but he doesn’t weigh as much. This also isn’t the result of a terrible curse like in Thinner but it’s just part of this fairytale-like story.

While I like the premise, because Scott is soon going to fade (or float) away and the loss of weight doesn’t seem to be something that can be stopped.  Also, it seems that he can make other people lighter by touching them (you’ll float too…but not in an evil clown way). However, this isn’t the only story.  Scott has a lesbian couple as neighbors and he gets off on the wrong foot with one. He tries to win her over, even though her partner likes Scott, but he’s unsuccessful.

As he’s working with a friend of his, a doctor, who is trying to find a cause and solution to his loss of weight, he enters a marathon in the hopes of beating his neighbor and, hopefully, earning her respect and friendship.  To make a short story short, he does win, the neighbors become friends, and they, along with the doctor, help Scott with his ailment, supporting him up until the point where he’s literally floating.

This is a fun little story, and while I really enjoyed the fact Scott won over his neighbor, it was too fast for me.  There is some heavy-handed preaching in there against homophobia and the ability for people to overcome differences, which is all great, I just wish we could have seen more development.  The lesbian couple are just outcasts from the get-go and Scott’s winning them over seems a little fast too, but again, this is a novella so things move quickly.

All that aside, this is a great little read and I’d pick it up again, but it’s not as powerful as some of King’s earlier novellas, nor is it his best contemporary one, but don’t cast it aside.  It’s a fun little story about friendship and community…and a guy that’s about to float away.