There’s no bigger compliment than when a reader visits a location from The Elevator, and celebrates the protagonist. Thanks to @MsBookmarked for this honest and likely the most accurate description of The Elevator:
This is a case of a book fallen victim to being mis-genred.
When I first dove into this book, my initial expectations were a meet-cute between two people in the same building that turns into a fluffy romance story. However, it’s clear very soon that this was not the direction of the book but rather falls more into the category of contemporary fiction. I’m glad that I was able to catch that early on, as I don’t think I would have liked this as much if I didn’t change my mindset.
With that said, I appreciate that this wasn’t romance focused because this is a story that was mainly about two people, with their own baggage, working through their issues on their own, despite always being in the vicinity of each other and yet never having truly crossed paths. There’s a lot of themes explored through their relatively mundane lives, like cultural expectations and eating disorders. While I appreciated that the story focused more on personal growth, I felt that it eventually became a double-edged sword. There’s not much interaction between all the characters, in particular our two mains, for me to become attached, and I wished that wasn’t the case so I can really feel the impact of the ending.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed The Elevator through its emotional exploration of baggage and issues experienced by modern day people. It also helps that I was biased because it was based in Toronto, and I had a lot of fun identifying all the different spots featured.
