Reviews - Riverside Public Library

Booklist Reviews

Scott, lonely after a divorce he didn't want, could stand to lose a little weight, but, even though the scale shows a steady decrease, he looks exactly the same. He confides in the retired Doctor Bob, who is just as mystified, but at least provides good company. Now if only Scott could resolve his troubles with Deirdre and Missy, new neighbors who have opened a Mexican restaurant. He's puzzled by Deirdre's hostility until he discovers that the good folks of Castle Rock, Maine, have pilloried the women not only because they're "lesbeans," as one indoctrinated boy puts it, but because they had the nerve to get married. How Scott—bedazzled by his gradual elevation and the new perspective it brings—makes use of his gravity-defying condition to bring the town together during the holiday season (even as he faces a dire fate) makes for a sharply imaginative, sweetly funny, tenderly uplifting fable. Divisive times call for unifying tales. Written in masterly King's signature translucent style and set in one of his trademark locales, this uncharacteristically glimmering fairy tale calls unabashedly for us to rise above our differences. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This succinct, magical, timely, and eminently discussable novel will bring in droves of King fans, along with all who enjoy charming yet edgy stories. Copyright 2018 Booklist Reviews.

Kirkus Reviews

King (The Outsider, 2018, etc.) revisits a couple of familiar themes while paying heed to new realities in this elegant whisper of a story. Scott Carey has a problem. He's a big guy, clocking in north of 240 pounds, but lately the bathroom scale has been telling him something different: He looks the same, but he's losing weight, pound after pound. "Twenty-eight pounds," he tells a doctor friend. "So far." There's more weight loss to come, recalling horrormeister King's Thinner (as Richard Bachman), though without the curse. But what is it that's remaking Scott—diabetes, cancer, a change of metabolism? It's not for want of eating: As King writes, "One of the benefits of his peculiar condition, aside from all the extra energy, was how he could eat as much as he wanted without turning into a podge." An adventurous palate, curiosity, and a brace of pooping pups who leave bits of themselves on his lawn put him into the orbit of a married couple, two newcomer women, who have opened a vegetarian Mexican restaurant in a quiet town in—where else?—Maine. The locals don't favor the couple with their business until—well, it would give too much away to talk about precipitating events, except to say that Scott has a way of being just where he's needed in the midst of inclement weather, to say nothing of a gift for setting a good example of neighborliness. As befits the premise, King delivers an uncharacteristically slim novel, just a hair longer than a novella, and one wishes there were just a little more backstory to give depth to Scott's good-guyness. Why is his reaching out to beleaguered neighbors important in "Trumpian" times? "It just is," Scott tells us, before he finds a memorable—and quite beautiful, really—way to depart a Podunk town made all the better for his presence. A touching fable with a couple of deft political jabs on the way to showing that it might just be possible for us all to get along. Copyright Kirkus 2018 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Library Journal Reviews

In small-town Castle Rock, Scott Carey is losing weight and barely gets along with the married lesbians next door. But as the town resists the couple's efforts to open a restaurant, Scott confronts his own prejudices and intervenes to help, even as his mysterious illness inspires compassion.

Library Journal Reviews

In King's newest novella, website designer Scott Carey has some health concerns. For one, the scale is showing steady, progressive weight loss—often one to two pounds a day—with no effort on his part. Even stranger, his body isn't changing along with the weight loss. He still has the middle-aged potbelly of a man who weighs 240 pounds, even though the scale shows 180. His friend, Doc Ellis, is just as stumped. It seems that gravity is selectively failing around Scott. Eventually, it will lose its hold and Scott will simply float away. He's not quite ready to give up, though. When he notices that the townspeople of Castle Rock are shunning a new restaurant owned by a lesbian couple, he works to open the minds of his fellow residents. VERDICT With no pun intended, Elevation is a slight work with a warm and optimistic heart at its center but not much in the way of plot. King's Constant Readers will enjoy the references to his earlier works and the familiar setting of Castle Rock, but this isn't essential King. Still, libraries should buy to fill demand. [Prepub Alert, 4/9/18.]—Jennifer Mills, Shorewood-Troy Lib., IL

Publishers Weekly Reviews

In this surprisingly sweet and quietly melancholy short novel, King (The Outsider) weaves an eerie, charming tale of the ways that strange circumstances can bring people together. Scott Carey is losing weight, but not mass, and there's no scientific explanation for it. Scales register him as lighter and lighter, though his body remains as potbellied as ever, and the effect is constant regardless of what he's wearing or holding. Shaken by his untreatable, supernatural ailment, Scott begins to notice the world around him—and particularly becomes aware of the nasty prejudice that other residents of Castle Rock, Maine, are inflicting on his lesbian neighbors, Deirdre and Missy. He sets out to fix the injustice ailing their small town, and maybe make some friends along the way. This is a lilting ode to the ineffable power that crises hold to change and mold those involved into something new. King's tender story is perfect for any fan of small towns, magic, and the joys and challenges of doing the right thing. Agent: Chuck Verrill, Darhansoff & Verrill. (Nov.)