Elevation

Lately, it seems, Amazon Customer Reviews have been experiencing a spike in reviews that are not, in the traditional sense, reviews at all. Some are Stephen King haters complaining about the price being charged for King, and other writers. Other false reviews are posted to register their umbrage at King due to his left-leaning political views.

Further, many reviewers who take pride in posting serious reviews get slammed for daring to be fans of his horror stories. Be that as it may, I will post my thoughts on his latest work, a short story that feels less new than some of his other more recent books.

At 160 pages, we get exposed to a character who’s story feels just like any other main character in a SK Horror. His ‘problem’ is one that people of my weight think would be a blessing instead of an adversity. What is different in this story is that it becomes very un-King in the path it takes, but to say more might be seen as a spoiler, so I shall stop here.

BLUSH FACTOR: In case you’re wondering, the writing does include some eff-words, so you probably won’t want to read it to your children or prayer group, unless you are skilled at skipping over the moderate number of profanities.

THE WRITING & EDITING: Professional quality in terms of mechanics. Insofar as the story, though, this is quite tame, especially for King. The feel of this story reminds me of the stories King wrote for the iPad and for the Kindle, except that this one is oriented more towards the dissension prevailing across the American political spectrum.

BOTTOM LINE

Despite my favorable disposition towards the author, and his political ideology, which I share, the lack of originality in the tale has me less impressed than I expected. I still love his writing and will continue to fork over my money eagerly.

Three stars out of five.

I am striving to produce reviews that help you find books that you want, or avoid books that you wish to avoid. With your help, my improvement will help you and me improve book reviews on Amazon. Together, you and I can build a great customer review process that helps everybody. Will you join me? It is people such as you who have helped me improve over the years. I’m still learning, and I have a great deal yet to learn. With your help, I’ll improve every day.

One request: Be respectful and courteous in your comments and emails to me. I will do likewise with you.

Thank you so much for indicating if this review helped you, or for your comment.

Hope.
Not the feeling I expected to have with this newest visit to Castle Rock, but that’s exactly how I feel after reading this story. We’re treated to a number of references, my favorite being the garage band that prepares for a gig by renaming themselves to Pennywise and the Clowns, but the odd things that happen to Scott, and more importantly, the way he deals with them… that’s the heart of this story. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Stephen King wrote this as a counterpoint to the endless parade of negativity that surrounds us more and more by the day. As an example of how we should be, rather than how we are. If he did, he knocked it out of the park. Not a long read, especially by his standards, but a rewarding one.

I liked this novella. It is a bit reminiscent of Thinner in terms of weight loss. But not a bad story…good not great. My question is as to Why are people docking stars based on their own ignorance? I knew when I pre ordered this book that it was a novella. I read the description and the page count. I understand the disappointment of the story being short and the price but its a new release! This is normal pricing folks. This is why the price was lowered from 19.99 originally to around 12.00. If you feel the story is bad, then rate it accordingly, but dont dock the rating based on your own reading error and anger. Its not right and misleading to future readers.

One, this is not a novel – not by a long-shot. It’s a 20kish word novella with massive type and low per-page word count stretched out to just barely 145 pages. It’s not worth $20 by any stretch.

Two, this is -terrible-. It’s a saccharine, boring as hell, ham-handed allegory about terminal illness that feels like it was intended to be sold as the plot of a Hallmark Network made for TV movie.

What is going on with you, Steve? First it was the dreadful, plodding Bill Hodges trilogy, then the god-awful Gwendy’s Button Box, which we could at least blame on your “collaborator”, but now this? Have you lost your sense of direction? I have no problem with SK moving away from horror, some of his best work isn’t horror at all, but he seems to have lost all sensibility as a writer of any quality.

Let’s be clear, the one star is to show my significant anger at a publisher essentially ‘ripping off’ committed and dedicated readers of one of the world’s favourite authors. This is a travesty – barely a short story, dressed up with a huge font, a cased binding and even crappy illustrations at the start of each chapter to puff it out a bit – they even tag on a few pages of Gwendy’s Button Box for good measure. It’s appalling. And frankly I hope Mr King is made very aware of the dissatisfaction amongst his loyal fans. He – and we – deserve better. Save your money everyone!!