Joyland | Stephen King

Title: Joyland
Author: Stephen King


Stephen King's Joyland takes us to a sun-soaked, slightly tacky North Carolina amusement park in the 1970s, where college student Devin Jones is spending the summer trying to get over his first heartbreak. Wendy Keegan has made her choice, and Devin is left to pick up the pieces. Fortunately, working at Joyland gives him plenty to occupy his time. Between the eccentric people who populate the park, his growing friendship with Annie and her remarkable son Mike, and the lingering mystery of a young woman murdered in the House of Horrors, Devin soon finds himself caught up in considerably more than a summer job.

For anyone working their way through King's enormous catalog, Joyland is a welcome break from the six-hundred-page doorstops he is known for. It's part coming-of-age story, part murder mystery, with just enough of the supernatural thrown in to keep things interesting. The mystery itself isn't particularly difficult to solve. I suspect Madame Fortuna could have figured it out without bothering with her crystal ball. But the mystery isn't really what makes this book worthwhile. It's the atmosphere, the characters, and the nostalgia of looking back on a summer that turned out to matter far more than anyone expected. King captures all of that beautifully, and I found myself enjoying the time spent at Joyland more than worrying about who committed the murder.

Joyland isn't particularly frightening, nor does it need to be. It's a quick, engaging read about heartbreak, growing up, and the people who changes our lives along the way. King doesn't need six hundred pages or a parade of horrors to tell a memorable story, and this book is a good example of why.

Four out of five stars.

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