Joyland by Stephen King [Book]

After realizing his romantic life is not going in the direction he’d hoped, Devin Jones decides to take a summer job at an amusement park. There he makes friends with Tom Kennedy and Erin Cook, also summer hires at Joyland, which years before had been the scene of the murder of a young woman named Linda Gray whose ghost is said to be seen at the Horror House. He also befriends a young boy, named Mike Ross and his mother, Annie. Their lives all become entwined when Devin decides to investigate the mystery of Linda Gray’s unsolved murder by the “Carny Killer.”

– STEPHENKING.COM

I just need to say first off, that Joyland shouldn’t really be classified as a “thriller” or “suspense” novel.  This is simply because there was absolutely nothing thrilling or suspenseful about it.  The books acts mainly as a sort of How To guide to working at a third rate amusement park during the 1970’s.  I also have to say that this is probably the worst book by Stephen King I have ever read.  But, as I have said before about the likes of Palahniuk, it was still pretty good (remember the sex pizza reference?  yeah, it’s like that).  It’s not that book is bad, just a sort of jumbled mindfuck that seems to take the easy way out at so many moments.

The novel’s main focus is advertised as being about a ghost of girl that was murdered and now haunts a (Surprise!) haunted house ride at this busted ass amusement park these days.  Yet, the damn ghost was hardly explained in the first act of the book, mentioned even less in the second, and had it’s story concluded in a bullshit manner in the third.  Oh, okay, so the boy can read minds, so that obviously means he can be the one to set the ghost free?  Sure, whatever, let’s get back to the kid losing his virginity.  That is my only real gripe is that this was suppose to be a suspense novel.  Which I really shouldn’t mind because I generally don’t like suspense or thriller or horror as genres for reading, although I seem to have dug into more of them lately.  I also feel the same for books centered around cops, with the exception of the Fletch series and Bukowski’s last novel Pulp.  But, Stephen King is, well, the Stephen King of horror and suspense.  Although he is also the genius behind such wonderful stories that are only mentally horrifying like The Green Mile and Rita Haworth and the Shawshank Redemption (these are prison based books, prison guards don’t count as cops), and he seemed to have sort of mashed together these two styles of writing.  Which is shame because it is suppose to be a book about a goddamn ghost!

But, although the book is only 15% ghosts and 85% coming of age in the 70’s, the best parts where the unnecessary ones.  And much like all of Stephen King’s work, it is so damn easy to become mentally invested in the well being of the characters.  I found myself wishing nothing but the best for the main character, and absolutely horrified when I discovered that is own hero was actually the legendary woman slayer who killed the girl 4 years earlier inside the Haunted House ride.  I was actually furious at this fact.  The dude I thought could have only been played by Matthew McConaughey if a film adaptation where to be made (the lead would go to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in case you were wondering, but in the era of Brick, not that piece of shit Looper), was the bad guy?  Leave it to King to perfectly ruin our interpretations of heroes and assholes.  So in this respect, King did alright.  King can write the shit out of a character, this is just a fact.  Hell, it is a widely know fact that he wrote some many books under the influence of drugs and alcohol that he doesn’t even remember writing them.  Yet is is still impeccable at character development, and in the case of those few novels, able to scare the shit out of you.  Now that’s punk rock, if you ask me.

Go ahead and read this book.  I definitely recommend the audiobook.  Michael Kelly does a bang up job on this one.  Just take heed that you shouldn’t really be looking to get yourself scared, it’s not going to happen.  And understand that this may very well be the most forgettable works by the legendary Stephen King you will ever read.  And that even at King’s worst, he’s still probably a better writer than you.  Enjoy!

Note: 2014 is the first year for book reviews at Trainwreck’d Society.  We will be making a valiant effort to read and review at least 100 books.  This is review #12.  Be sure to stay in touch and be on the lookout for further reviews throughout 2014.  Be sure to let us know if we are falling behind.  For a complete list of book reviews, click HERE.  Enjoy!