Title: Joyland

Author: Stephen King

Genre: Mystery, Horror

Publisher: Hard Case Crime

Format: Paperback

Pages: 283

Rating: 4/5 stars

Synopsis (Goodreads):

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.

Joyland is a brand-new novel and has never previously been published.

Review:

This was my first Stephen King book and it did not disappoint! I was a little worried as I’m not a huge horror fan. I don’t like watching horror movies and I don’t like being scared. So I was hesitant to read this genre but I feel like this book was the perfect book to initiate myself into the horror genre. Because it wasn’t too scary for me!! –

Devin gets a summer job working at a carnival, Joyland. This carnival isn’t just a place to go to have fun, but it’s a lifestyle for the workers, and Devin meets a variety of fun characters who even have their own “carny language”. Not only are there fun characters, but there is also a murder mystery that Devin gets absorbed into.

King writes amazingly well! I was intrigued the whole book, and I was quite empathetic towards the main character and how he was struggling to figure out who he is and what he wants to do!

If you’re looking for a fun summer read with a murder mystery twist, then I definitely recommend this book!

Happy reading!