Book Review: Elevation by Stephen King

Scott Carey is steadily losing weight, but he doesn’t look any different. To make things even weirder, he weighs the same in and out of clothes, no matter how heavy they are…

“Everything leads to this, he thought. To this elevation.”

When I’m reading a book, and because my memory is terrible, I will usually make some observations and reminders in the Notes section of my iPhone which are very helpful when I go to write my review. Given the length of this novella and the fact that I read Elevation in two sittings, there really wasn’t a lot of opportunities to make notes. In fact, I only had one note written down for Elevation: “Stop obsessing over legs” – I mean, come on, King!! If he’s not commenting on a woman’s breasts, it’s the legs. And 95% of the time, it’s really not relevant or necessary. There were two lesbians in this story and I lost count of how many times there were references to their legs and/or the running shorts they were wearing. I cannot fathom how Tabby hasn’t pulled King up on this. That woman usually takes no shit. But that is an annoyance I have learned to semi-accept when it comes to reading King – I just needed to get that mini-rant out of the way. 

I read Elevation right away without having read any prior reviews, so all thoughts and reactions were truly my own – I didn’t go into it expecting to hate/love it, whatever. And I believe that’s the best way to read any new King. In my opinion, Elevation is not King’s best, by any stretch of the imagination. However, I did quite enjoy it. I really liked it for what it was – an uplifting story with the kind of message we need when the world is falling to shit around us. I didn’t realise how attached to the characters I had become until the very end when I was tearing up and feeling quite emotional. No other author can make me feel as attached or emotionally invested in a character’s story than King.

It’s not horror and I don’t know why it’s been categorised as horror by Goodreads, but I never expected it to be going by the synopsis or the beautiful, bright cover. It’s more magical realism – and I liked the direction that King took with it. I actually wish Elevation had been developed into a full-size novel, not a chunky book, but something similar to one of his shorter novels. I feel like he could have expanded upon so many things, developed the characters a bit more, spent more time following Scott’s unusual problem. It was definitely good to be back in Castle Rock, even though it didn’t really feel like a typical Castle Rock story. And of course, the Easter eggs were as fun as always!

I have seen complaints about paying full price for such a short story, and I can fully appreciate that annoyance – although I would say that is more down to the publishers than King himself. Elevation would have worked much better if released as part of a collection, similar to Gwendy’s Button Box last year. New releases are great when they’re so regular, but I’d honestly rather wait and just buy a collection!

This is slightly SPOILERY so beware of you haven’t read Elevation yet, but I had seen a few reviews where people had complained about the inference that “Oh these two poor lesbians needed help from a straight white male” and I honestly did not view it in that way AT ALL. Do you really think King has that perspective? Given that his own daughter is a lesbian? In this day and age, nothing is taken at face value anymore, it has to be twisted or interpreted in some way to be negative. Instead of viewing it like that, how about just viewing it as an act of kindness? Of community? Of giving someone a helping hand when they’re struggling? It really baffles me. Same when it comes to people giving off about King being so political – I’m sorry, is this a new thing? King has a history of being political in his writing. I will admit, however, that the politics are a bit heavy-handed in this story and it could have been toned down a bit.

There’s a lot of dividing opinions on Elevation, but overall, I had a good time! 3.5 stars.

Johann

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