Joyland Review
Title: Joyland
Author: Stephen King
Date Purchased: 2/10/2016
Price Paid: $1.06
Date Finished: 2/14/2021
Rating: 3.5/5
I have always had an interesting relationship with Stephen King’s books. As a teen growing up in the 1990’s (and a New England teen at that) many of my friends sunk themselves into King’s novels. They were always waiting for the next book, and spent many hours talking about how good they were.
My opinion was a bit different. I read a LOT of his books during those years, and encountered mixed results. Don’t get me wrong…when he wrote a good book? It was amazing. Hell, I still haven’t finished Pet Sematary as that book scared the shit out of me.
But he also wrote several books bad enough that I would have invoked Rule Three had this blog been a thing back then. Gerald’s Game? Shit. Absolute shit.
It has been many years since I’ve read anything from Stephen King that wasn’t a tweet, so I was interested to see where Joyland would fall. And, I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised.
Joyland is the story of Devin Jones, a young man who leaves New England for the summer to work in a North Carolina amusement park. While there he deals with heartbreak, finds a purpose, and discovers a mystery wrapped up in a ghost story.
As I read this book, I found myself enjoying the character of Devin quite a bit. Once I thought back, I discovered a bit of a pattern. Many of King’s novels (at least the ones I’ve enjoyed) feature protagonists on the younger side, and he has a knack for being able to frame the thoughts of youth through the lens of memory.
Joyland is recounted by an older Devin, looking back on the events of the story many years later. As such, the story is peppered throughout with a sort of internal commentary: adult Devin reflects on the thoughts and actions of himself as a young man, seeing things with a clarity that only time is able to bring about.
This device is one that King uses quite regularly, with varying degrees of success. Although, to be fair, that success might hinge heavily on whether the reader is able to form a connection with a character or not. Which admittedly sounds like a “duh” statement, but let me elaborate.
Devin goes through a breakup in the book, and King spend a good deal of time describing not only how Young Devin handled this, but also how Narrator Devin sees things many years later. While this is a fairly important part of the story, it doesn’t seem at first glance like something that could draw a reader in.
But nostalgia can be a powerful thing, and something about Devin’s story resonated with me. As he looked back on the things that were so important to him as a young man, the things that threw his whole life out of whack, it reminded me of MY past. It reminded me of exactly how I feel when looking back on my younger years.
Of course, this does make me wonder if my own distance from teenage Dan would change my thoughts on some of King’s books. Will my perspective as an adult find something in his characters that I missed as a teen? Perhaps. This might make a fun project for the future, but I don’t think this will help me get through The List.
The story itself is an engaging one: the small amusement park where Devin works was once host to a grizzly murder, one that has remained unsolved for years. As the summer progresses Devin becomes more and more enthralled with the story, which is fueled by one of his friends seeing the victim’s ghost.
As a Stephen King story, this one is on the tame end of the spectrum. We deal with a bit of the supernatural and a few scenes of violence, but nothing that will keep most folks up at night.
All in all I really enjoyed Joyland. I had to deliberate for a bit on whether it deserved a 3 or a 4 rating – which led to a 3.5. I would recommend this book to anyone that was a fan of mystery novels, but I know King’s characters aren’t going to connect with every reader.
Final Thoughts: A great beach read, worth the time and the $1.06 I paid for it.