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With only a few audio book hours left in my Spotify account for the month, I decided to cross this brief novella off my list. Stephen King, the king of premises, has come up with another intriguing idea. His main character, Scott, is a generic good guy Mainer who abruptly realizes that despite looking just the same as he always has, he is steadily losing weight. Ever more curiously, he weighs the same clothing or unclothed. He even weighs the same when he’s holding a chair or another heavy object. Scott’s friend Bob, a retired doctor, is perplexed but can’t help.
In addition to the loss of mass, Scott is also dealing with a conflict with his new neighbors. Deirdre and Millie are a lesbian married couple operating a new vegetarian restaurant that is struggling to attract customers. Though he gets off to a rocky start with them due to an argument other their dogs’ bathroom habits, Scott finds himself getting involved. He wants to help their business, despite their suspicions of him as a proverbial White Knight.
To be honest, this is all fairly heavy-handed. While Scott’s mysterious ailment is the main plot, it still feels odd that he gets to be the hero of the story of these two women and their small business.
More to the point, this novella is too brief and dashed off to leave much of a lasting impression. The characters are thin and don’t have the space to develop. Instead they follow the steep arc of being angry, meeting Scott, and then being happy because they did. Hurrah?