Joyland Author: Stephen King | Language: English | ISBN:
B00I75EROU | Format: EPUB
Joyland Description
A STUNNING NEW NOVEL FROM ONE OF THE BEST-SELLING AUTHORS OF ALL TIME!
The #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever.
"I love crime, I love mysteries, and I love ghosts. That combo made Hard Case Crime the perfect venue for this book, which is one of my favorites. I also loved the paperbacks I grew up with as a kid, and for that reason, we’re going to hold off on e-publishing this one for the time being. Joyland will be coming out in paperback, and folks who want to read it will have to buy the actual book." –
Stephen King- Print Length: 288 pages
- Publisher: Hard Case Crime; 1st edition (April 8, 2014)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00I75EROU
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,371 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #4
in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror > Ghosts - #8
in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Hard-Boiled - #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Historical
- #4
in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror > Ghosts - #8
in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Hard-Boiled - #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Historical
As a kid looking for something to pique my literary hunger beyond the outgrown Judy Blume and Babysitters Club series, I crept into my parents' library late one night and stumbled on a book about a pyrokinetic young girl on the run with her father. I snuck it back to my room under my shirt and spent the next few nights devouring it under my blankets with a flashlight. I quickly moved on to The Shining, Carrie, Cujo, and It. And so began my literary love affair with Stephen King at 11 years old.
Over the years, I've loved some books more than others, but the Dark Tower series were really what convinced me that he could do no wrong. But after his accident had taken its toll and a string of books read somewhat uninspired and formulaic, I figured his best work was behind him. I was a little sad, of course, but grateful for all the entertainment and inspiration I found through his previous books. Besides, everyone has to lose their mojo eventually, right?
Oh, so very, very wrong.
I knew it three chapters into 11/22/63. And now, the thrill ride that is Joyland proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt: Stephen King's mojo is back, full force. It's like Jerry Garcia in a bag, man. Except in a book.
And speaking of BOOKS...
I drove to the store late last night and stayed up through the wee hours of the morning reading Joyland under my blankets, this time with a slightly more advanced book light. To those complaining about the fact that King didn't release it on e-book, quit your whining. Reading an actual book (not a screen) is FUN. As an adult now with kids of my own who love to read, ebook are strictly for school or literary emergencies (only real book lovers know what I mean) in our house.
Joyland consumed me, took me down into a world I can still remember outside of the novel because I lived through those times as well, and left me nostalgic and emotionally exhausted. This book is one of Stephen King's best, a steady, haunting melody of memory and youth and innocence that was euphoric.
Readers looking for one of King's bloodthirsty romps aren't going to get that here. They're going to get the Stephen King that wrote Bag of Bones, Hearts in Atlantis, and "The Body," all tales that I enjoy and recommend to any reader, especially those who think that all the author produces are horror stories.
Devin Jones, the main character, is me at 21, and I think he's a lot of the guys who grew up in the 1970s when the Vietnam War was going on, the battle of the sexes was being waged, and the world was in turmoil. King doesn't really talk about the big issues in this novel, but you can see them in Dev is you know where to look.
Dev is a guy who's just trying to live a quiet life, a "right" life, and find a small amount of happiness chasing his dreams. Of course, he's chasing after the wrong girl, and yeah, a lot of us have been there too.
The book wanders around a lot and introduces a lot of characters, but I was glad to check out the scenery and I enjoyed getting to meet all the people. There are several familiar characters in these pages, all of them the kind of folks King generally tucks into his stories - real people with real histories that we only get glimpses of, which is like real life too. You get the feeling that King knows a lot more about these characters than he shows here, and with his habit of bringing characters back to sprinkle into other novels, I get the feeling that we'll see some of them again.
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