It's 1973 and university student, Devon Jones, is spending the summer working at Joyland, an amusement park doing everything from running rides to wearing the furry mascot costume. A few years ago a woman had been murdered on one of the rides and it's said that her ghost haunts the ride still.
Devon is nursing a broken heart because his girlfriend had just broken up with him so he throws himself into his job. He becomes friends with his co-workers and a mother and her disabled son. The story of the ghost of the murdered woman intrigues him and he has more than a passing interest in figuring out what happened to her.
Stephen King has written many many books over the years and this is the first one of his that I've read.
It's written in first person perspective from Devon's point of view 40 years later ... so it was like he was sitting with me telling me the story. That worked for me. As a head's up, there is swearing (like the F-bomb and see-you-next-Tuesday) and adult activity.
The story was okay ... it could have been better. There was a lot of focus on teaching us the carny lingo and ways. The characters were likeable enough. It's 1973 and Devon is fairly innocent.
I found the ending came very quickly. When I'm reading a mystery, I like when clues are dropped throughout the book so I can solve it along with our hero. That didn't really happen here. Devon has a sudden realization and figures out who the killer is ... and the killer coincidentally calls him 10 seconds later and confesses. There wasn't enough build-up for me. And I wasn't buying the presence of the spirits.
All in all, this book was just okay and it isn't making me rush to read his other books.
No comments:
Post a Comment