Today's shout out is to my local winter vacationing homeboy, Stephen King, who winters in Casey Key, FL a few miles away from my humble abode. Everyone in my family assumes that I am a huge Stephen King fan. In reality, I'm someone who has read a few of his books and ended up disliking more than I enjoyed. The few books I did really like, however, I would incessantly talk about leading my family to assume that I am a die hard horror fiction fan. Not so, my friends, not so.
Flashback, 7th grade, the movie Misery is released. The novel comes out in paperback and when grocery shopping with my Dad, he lets me get a copy. I devour the book before I see the movie. This starts my obsession with reading books that become movies. Anyway, that Christmas, my family now has the perfect gift ideas for me and I get a stack of Stephen King books. By far, the books of his that I have loved so are The Stand, Eyes of the Dragon, The Green Mile, Four Past Midnight, On Writing and Misery. There were a few I gave up on...Dreamcatcher, The Dark Tower Series, Gerald's Game, Dolores Claiborne and even more that I wished I had given up on.
The biggest problem I have with finding joy in reading King is that he tends to be a little too verbose on stuff that has nothing to do with the plot. He rambles, he gets sidetracked...it drives me crazy. His plots are genius but it's like he sometimes needs a little ADHD medication to get him focused back on the topic at hand. His wife and son also write and I really enjoyed reading their work. His wife has a wonderful way with a nice even pace in her novels but the material is not my style, a little too 50 Shades before 50 Shades was popular. His son, writing under the pseudonym Joe Hill, has the best of his parents. He has his mother's way with words and his father's creative muse. Heart Shaped Box was good, I recommend it and may someday get around to writing a review for it. Interestingly enough, Joe Hill is usually located right next to Stephen King in the Horror section of the bookstore. I find this funny for some reason.
Speaking of rambling, I digress...Joyland was good. It's not his typical type of novel and to my delight was released in soft cover by Hard Case Crime publishers. I was a hard sell on eBooks but my frugalness won over my love for the feel of paper book in my hands. This is why I was so happy that I could justify forking over $12.95 for a new release. Kudos, Mr. King, for recognizing your fans financial statuses.
This story was unlike any other that I read of his. The closest he's come is The Green Mile and even then they're both so unique in content that it's hard to remember the same author wrote both. In a way, it's reminiscent of James Patterson who can cover pretty much every genre with the greatest of ease.
The story is told by Devin Jones, recanting a tale of his youth where he took a summer job at an amusement park with a dark, myseterious secret and a spooky haunted house. Not once does he ramble or get off track in the condense 283 pages. To be honest, I almost forgot I was reading a King book until every now and again he'd sneak in a really unneeded vulgarity or euphemism for some kind of sexual innuendo. (Not that I'm a prude, but it really didn't fit in the story.)
In the end, I would really classify this as a whodoneit type mystery and I'd definitely give it a thumbs up. It's a quick summer read for curling up on the patio during an afternoon shower. Once you're done, Constant Reader, tell me what you thought...
Until we meet again...
