A Book A Week

"What's a self-respecting amusement park without a ghost?"

Devin Jones is looking for an escape. His girlfriend Wendy left him for another guy, and now Devin is finding it nearly impossible to get over her. Everywhere he goes, everything he does, he is constantly reminded of Wendy. Even though she left him for another boy, Devin can't help but imagine what might have been. Determined to leave his past behind, he ends up getting a summer job at Joyland.

Joyland is one of those amusement parks from a bygone era. It is the kind of place that used to exist before the big corporate parks like Disney and Universal Studios captured the majority of their customers. Like the many other seasonal employees, Devin is immediately consumed by the magic of the place. The park is filled with a cast of quirky characters who slowly begin to take Devin under their wing.

A Stephen King novel wouldn't be complete without a tinge of horror lurking beneath the surface. Devin soon learns of a gruesome murder that occurred in one of the dark rides many years ago. The young woman, whose murder remains unsolved, haunts the ride to this day. Following a cryptic message from Joyland's resident fortune teller, Devin attempts to decipher the meaning and to find more answers about the ghost.

This is easily the best novel that Stehpen King has published in recent years. Beyond the horror elements, which have become extremely light compared to his earlier works, King's characters are the crowning achievement of his most successful stories. He casts his tale with engaging and believably flawed people who keep the novel grounded in reality through even the wildest events. At its heart, Joyland is a coming of age story that reminds us to appreciate our time here on earth. After all of these years, King has evolved from giving us nightmares to teaching us that, "life isn't always a butcher's game. Sometimes the prizes are real. Sometimes they're precious."

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and GoodReads.

(2016, 5)