September Book: Joyland by Stephen King

Once August hits, the New Years Resolution gets harder and harder to try and complete. I failed to complete any in August. With school starting for me and the kids, band for Dakota and football for Alaric, it was really hard to get everyone together. The only goal met for September was a book. Today is the last day of the month so I figured I better get my blog entry to complete. I am hoping to at least get books read through the rest of the year.

Joyland was a perfect end of summer book. I was delighted to find a Stephen King novel that was fewer than 300 pages long. Printed under the Hard Case Logo and having a cover like a pulp fiction novel, I wasn't sure what to expect. The story is about 20 year old Devin Jones, a college student whose girlfriend dumps him. He takes a job working at an amusement park, Joyland, in North Carolina. That's when the story begins.

The amusement park has a cast of 1000 interesting characters including other summer workers who become lifelong friends with Devin. King introduces carny lingo, and a great behind the scenes of how an amusement park runs.

Once again King proves he is a master of characterization. A few pages into the book and the reader "knows" Devin. And like his other book, his characters are multi-dimensional. There is no clear black and white. The book gets interesting when Devin looks into a murder that happened years ago in the parks' haunted house ride. 

A bit of a ghost story, a bit of a coming of age story. No real horror. Anyone can read this book. I couldn't put it down.