Stephen King

In a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, 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.

Joyland

Unfortunately, Joyland left me a little disappointed. The main character isn't as convincing as you'd expect from King, and the story itself isn't particularly exciting either. The mystery surrounding the murder of Linda Gray was intriguing and promising at the beginning, but as there was hardly any information about it and barely anyone seemed to be interested in the case, it seemed almost irrelevant to me while I was reading. The line “It's not white” was initially creepy and promised a great mystery, but the resolution was disappointing to me. Lane Hardy didn't have a good motive, faded next to the many other characters, and simply wasn't a credible killer.

Although the tattoo subplot was a clever idea and created a little tension in between, it was undone by the boring and far too sudden ending. Annie and Mike were good characters, but they didn't feature enough and hardly had a chance to show their true potential.

Overall, I only finished the book in the hopes that the mystery would finally be addressed, but unfortunately I was disappointed. If you want a real King feeling, you should rather read his classics.

Emily

Unfortunately, Joyland left me a little disappointed. The main character isn't as convincing as you'd expect from King, and the story itself isn't particularly exciting either. The mystery surrounding the murder of Linda Gray was intriguing and promising at the beginning, but as there was hardly any information about it and barely anyone seemed to be interested in the case, it seemed almost irrelevant to me while I was reading. The line “It's not white” was initially creepy and promised a great mystery, but the resolution was disappointing to me. Lane Hardy didn't have a good motive, faded next to the many other characters, and simply wasn't a credible killer.

Although the tattoo subplot was a clever idea and created a little tension in between, it was undone by the boring and far too sudden ending. Annie and Mike were good characters, but they didn't feature enough and hardly had a chance to show their true potential.

Overall, I only finished the book in the hopes that the mystery would finally be addressed, but unfortunately I was disappointed. If you want a real King feeling, you should rather read his classics.




Patrick Book

I was shocked by how much this book sucked, especially after being blown away by 11/22/63. I honestly believe that King tossed this off in a weekend. It's completely misrepresentative of the "hard crime" designation; there's pretty much no crime. Worse, he seems like he's recycling a character from "The Stand" and offers up a warmed-over retreading of the shining ability from The Shining. The writing is incredibly repetitive and the characterization of Dev is laughable; it's like every 20 or 30 pages King remembered Dev was supposed to be miserable so he threw in a line about Wendy Keegan. This was sloppy, went on too long, and was just overly pointless. Weak sauce, man. Weak sauce.

Ana Luiza

Não gostei muito desse livro e acho que a culpa foi minha.
Minha idea era ler algo na vibe terror por conta do mês do Halloween e, olhando para minha estante, logo pensei em Joyland. Não sabia NADA sobre essa história, além de que se passava em um parque de diversões, mas por alguma motivo eu pensava ser um livro assustador. Não é. Nem um pouco. Esse é um thriller que não passa nem perto do terror, na minha opinião. Então, eu comecei esse livro com as expectativas erradas. Se soubesse que era thriller talvez nem tivesse lido, já que não gosto muito do gênero.
Mas, apesar disso, é Stephen King. E ele é um escritor sem comparação, é difícil pensar na última vez que li um universo tão bem construído. King descreveu local e as sensação emanadas por ele e por as pessoas que ali viviam de uma forma tão intensa que parecia que aquele lugar realmente existia e a qualquer momento eu poderia pesquisar na internet e achar uma foto exatamente igual ao que imaginava. Stephen King escreve bem demais, cada personagem, os diálogos, as cenas... Perfeito. 
Pena que thriller realmente não é pra mim kkk não tava nem ai pra quem matou Linda. Mas o final foi legal. Mike era muito fofo <3

Of the 4 Stephen King books I have read, counting this one, Joyland had the best ending.

I've found I have to rate SK's books based on whether or not I liked the ending, because everything else about his books is phenomenal and I can't even compare them because they are all so different and complex and good.

His characters especially just have a way of coming to life and fully visualized.

Emma Lechner

Of the 4 Stephen King books I have read, counting this one, Joyland had the best ending.

I've found I have to rate SK's books based on whether or not I liked the ending, because everything else about his books is phenomenal and I can't even compare them because they are all so different and complex and good.

His characters especially just have a way of coming to life and fully visualized.

Lara Engle

This book is not what I would consider a normal Stephen King book. It's fairly short. There isn't really any horror. There's an interesting whodunit, a touch of the supernatural, and an everyman kind of protagonist. King seems to be getting more nostalgic as he gets older, and I think it's a good look for him.

Stephen King, Joyland Wie durft het spookhuis binnen te gaan? Devin Jones heeft het prima naar zijn zin in het amusementspark Joyland, waar hij een zomerbaantje heeft en zijn liefdesverdriet probeert te verwerken. Zó naar zijn zin dat hij besluit zijn studie te onderbreken om een tijdje in Joyland te blijven. Hij raakt in de ban van de verhalen over de jaren geleden vermoorde Linda Gray, wier geest nog altijd in het spookhuis rondwaart. Er gaan geruchten dat er in de buurt meer jonge vrouwen zijn vermoord, op precies dezelfde manier. Als Devin zich ook nog ontfermt over een terminaal ziek jongetje, zullen de komende gebeurtenissen zijn leven voorgoed veranderen. Joyland is een onvergetelijk verhaal over liefde en verlies, over opgroeien en oud worden, en over diegenen voor wie de dood voortijdig komt. Joyland is Stephen King op zijn best. Het heeft de emotionele impact van meesterwerken zoals The Green Mile en The Shawshank Redemption en is tegelijk een geweldig mysterie, horrorverhaal en bitterzoet coming-of-age verhaal ineen.

i honestly don't know how i feel about this book. it was very slow paced and it bothered me a lot because it took over half of the book to finally get "intense". overall it was good and also interesting. it's not the best book i've read but also not the worst

This one was so hard to rate! Because the first half was really confusing to me but the second half picked up so much that I remembered why I love Stephen King's books so much.
The characters he writes are just brilliant and he proves it once again in this book. Really sad the book was so confusing in the beginning and I can't rate it higher than a 3.5 stars...

Sarah Erle

Kelsey Lynn

I'll update this review later, but for now I'll keep it short.

I primarily read this book because I loved the cover, and the implication that the cover gave was that the reader was in syore for a nice pulpy ghostly whodunit.

What I got though was a suprisungly heartfelt coming of age story about a kid who was figuring out how to be a person. I felt more for the characters of this book than I do about many characters.

This book was calm and ethereal and at times even beautiful, sure there was some mystery and a thriller in the climax but over all I didn't get the impression that this was what the book was about. What made this book so good, however, was that even though it wasn't what I had expected or wanted, I loved it.
Even if you came for a whodunit, before you get dissapointed just stay and enjoy the extremely well written and heart wrenching coming of age that you'll find instead.

Sian Wadey

Stephen King is one of the best storytellers that has ever existed. Ever. That's the only way to describe him, the only way to explain how wonderful this book is. I personally prefer his simpler stories, like Carrie, or Misery. Not too much going on, but the characters pop out of the pages and you instantly feel for them, their situation, their surroundings.
Joyland is one of these books. We follow Dev, as he is employed at Joyland in the summer of 1973. From the first few lines I was hooked into the story. Dev is likeable, and the story is told in his voice, which makes him easy to sympathise with. 
Along the way we meet a menagerie of interesting characters from Rozzie, the eccentric fortune teller, his friends Erin and Tom, handyman Lane, to Mike, his mother and their Jack Russell. Yet despite their eccentricities, none of them seem out of place. Joyland itself is described vividly, and the essence of the seventies seeps through too. 
The main story is more about the murder of several young women, notably Linda Grey at Joyland, over the years and Dev and Erin's work into solving it. It is captivating, as King's work normally is and your breath is held as he peels back each layer, revealing more clues. But unfortunately for me, I guessed who the perpetrator was, which was disappointing, but there's always that pleasant feeling of being right.
The tale of Mike, his mother Annie and their dog Milo runs alongside this one. The characters are portrayed brilliantly and I was hooked on every word spoken. I didn't feel like I was rushing through their parts to get back to the murder either, which I have done is some other books. 
So overall, more books like this please Mr King! Stories and characters with heart that let your imagination run wild.

Cams Campbell

I found this pretty boring. I'd have given up on it if it had been longer, but it was short, so I persevered. Can't really say I'm glad I did. Not like SK to do a straight-up murder mystery, albeit with a psychic disabled kid. I just didn't care whodunnit.

Jan Jackson

He’s a storyteller, alright. Some would say not literary, but he has characters, plot, easy dialogue, and mystery aplenty. I’d read King over several of the more ‘elite’ authors, any day.

Jason Porterfield

Nothing new here, but Joyland's a pretty quick and breezy read. Mind the chump-hoister.

Анастасия Розова

3.5/5
It wasn't something I expected it to be, it was different, but I still very much enjoyed it. It was a slow, but nice read. I didn't regret reading it, I just wasn't fully into the story. It wasn't an exciting experience, but it was a good one.

Life is Not Always a Butcher's Game. Sometimes the Prizes Are Real. Sometimes They're Precious. All-time best-selling author STEPHEN KING returns with a novel of carny life—and death... College student Devin Jones took the summer job at Joyland hoping to forget the girl who broke his heart. But he wound up facing something far more terrible: the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and dark truths about life—and what comes after—that would change his world forever. A riveting story about love and loss, about growing up and growing old—and about those who don't get to do either because death comes for them before their time—JOYLAND is Stephen King at the peak of his storytelling powers. With all the emotional impact of King masterpieces such as The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption, JOYLAND is at once a mystery, a horror story, and a bittersweet coming-of-age novel, one that will leave even the most hard-boiled reader profoundly moved.

Christina M Masters

I never even knew this book existed until just this month! I love Stephen King's writing. He is just a great storyteller. And even though this book was not overtly scary, it still creeped me out a time or two in true King fashion! Unlike a lot of his books that look more like tomes (I love those too so not hating), this is a short, sweet coming of age story mixed in with a bit of a murder mystery. Very good, fast read.

Bianca Pereira da Ponte

Esse final me machucou ao mesmo tempo que me deixou feliz! Ele conseguiu concluir tudo sem acabar se estabanado e deixou o livro curto mas maravilhoso. Eu acho que sou muito ruim em descobrir as coisas pois só soube quem era o assassino no momento em que ele falou kkkk então o mistério valeu muito a pena para mim.

Tom van de Bruinhorst

** spoiler alert **
           Ik hou van de schrijfstijl van deze man, alleen had ik dit boek geleend in de hoop een beetje te griezelen. Maar werd ik meer ontroerd.

Jales

Kelsey Holtaway

Honestly had some really sweet moments but it’s kind of a book about nothing

b.andherbooks

**Review based on audiobook version**

While cataloged as a "mystery," the true beauty of Joyland is its language and character development. A truly nostalgic tale of one man's 21st year working at an amusement park in the 1970s, King's imagery jumps to life and immerses you in this seaside world. The narrator (Stamper from House of Cards) is also amazing. Each character is distinctly defined and has his or her own voice. Great listen for a trip up to Door County, WI and VERY short (less than 300 pages in the print version)for Stephen King.

Mari-Claire Parrin

Jana Pashovska

A slow-burner with some unexpected twists and turns and remarkable characters, absolutely worth the read because of Mr.King's extraordinary storytelling abilities which transcend genres—he blurs the lines between thriller, romance and the supernatural, all blended together in a bittersweet coming-of-age novel that made a rather interesting weekend read and served to only further cement Stephen King as one of my favourite writers.

Joyland

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