Joyland

By: Stephen King

Narrated by: Michael Kelly

Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

"Joyland is a breathtaking, beautiful, heartbreaking book.... Even the most hardboiled readers will find themselves moved."
—Charles Ardai, Edgar- and Shamus Award-winning editor of Hard Case Crime.

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.

©2013 Stephen King. All rights reserved. (P)2013 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Great read!

Nobody does King like the King. Another classic example of great characters and a super story line

Best Narrator I’ve ever listened to!

I want Michael Kelly to narrate my life story after listening to this performance. The novel is solid, but his performance is what truly makes this book stand out. Incredible talent!

Thrilling

Joyland is full of wonderful rides and games. Only in there lives a dark secret. This book like many amusement park rides is fast and thrilling. Only to leave you with memories. Some good, some bad and never forgotten.

Took a while

Good book. It took a while to get into & grab me, but it’s a good story.

A New Favorite

I loved everything about this story. Not as verbose as many of King’s works, which sometimes bothers me even as a super fan. A great story with characters who you’ll care about right away. A good listen, narration was easy on the ear and I heard every character in their unique voice. Perfect for a summer listen. Recommend!

Reignited the passion I thought was taken from me forever when I lost my eyesight as an avid reader

What I love about this story is it's a perfect blend of nostalgia, moments where you're caught off guard with humor & gore is never used as a crutch for the genre thriller/horror type of story. I always had a passion for reading. I could never get enough and always kind of panicked that some day I would run out of books to read (Not just books of my personal collection but literally all the books in the library on topics like fiction, documentary style or autobiographies). I was ridiculously afraid that 1 day I would just run out of options.

I was born with a serious health issue In which one of the issues was that I lost my eyesight and ability to read. Stephen King was an author that up until '99 I'd read every single piece of literature (even his short columns that would be in magazines in the early parts of his career that some eventually became publication). I wasn't as adverse to the fear and horror aspects that came with his stories initially though over time I was less inclined to read something scary as I had started to see enough real life horrors. Joyland ironically was one of my last books I ever read. Even though I was adverse to the horror story style, I did not ever become adverse to the style of the way in which Stephen King writes. So I did continue finding books of his that maybe had slightly less of pure terror that was enough to keep me up at night. I still held love of his writing style that I had fallen in love with so many years ago. After losing my eyesight when my friends add family so eagerly tried to introduce me to audiobooks I was skeptical at first.
All I can say is I am glad I never closed myself off completely to the idea because I found Audible & when I came across Joyland I couldn't have been more thrilled. This book brought me right back In time and it's a story which I'd always held high appreciation for because even if you never had summer vacations, went to the beach or amusement parks you could easily find them in this story, and if you were someone like myself that had memories of summer's on beaches and rickety amusement parks this is also perfect. I strongly recommend this one.

One of Kings best

I love Stephen King. His characters are so compelling, his story lines are wonderfully perverse. Sometimes he blathers on too long and sometimes he does not.
This is one of those stories that is just right, perfect.

Very heart warming

The reader was excellent and the story was touching you with enjoy it as much as I did

Another Great Horror book

Not all authors can do what Stephen King can do. First of all what made me buy this book before i even read the summary is that its a horror book by Stephen King called "Joyland" that was a reason enough for me. if you liked King's other horror book you will love this one. Remember how his book Duma key was? If you do then just add this and read it, and if you don't go buy Duma Key too then.

I was waiting for this book for a while and i decided listening to a horror book at night would be the greatest thing, so took the day off from work and had a good scary listen to this book

I don't want to say whats going on in the book exactly and i advice you not to check because getting surprised is way much better.

The narrator did a great job, plenty of differente voices, and he gave life to these characters.

highly recommended and you will love it.

Stephen King's Latest Coming-of-Age Story

Ok, so there's a new Stephen King book out called Joyland. Here are some of the key components:

- A serial killer who slashes throats at amusement parks.
- A ghost.
- A little boy with a special ability to just sort of 'know things'.
- A whodunnit mystery.
- A college kid who loses his sweetheart and grows up.

As everyone knows, Stephen King is the master of terror - so you might expect the first three components listed above to be the most important parts of Joyland... but you would be wrong!

Joyland is, at its heart, the coming of age tale of 21 year old Devin Jones. Devin is an everyman, a nice guy. He's going through a rough breakup with his first true love. He gets a job at Joyland, a second rate amusement park filled with cool college kids at summer jobs and weirdo carnies that are kind of there for life. There's a fortune teller, some sexy girls who take photos and pressure you into buying them, and plenty other flavorful characters. It's a flavorful and interesting backdrop for a novel.

As mentioned above, Devin is dealing with a lot of stuff. He's a young kid in an emotional part of life, and the ghost, serial killer, etc. serve as plot devices for some real growing up. The ghost and serial killer might sound scary, but there aren't really very many scary moments in Joyland. There are a few, I guess, but there are many more touching moments. Moments where you want to reach out to Devin and say, "Devin, hang in there dude - we'll get through this together and things will work out great." This isn't a book that will keep you up at night, this is a book that will keep you wondering how Stephen King can put into words so perfectly what it's like to like a girl who likes someone else better than you. If you're looking for a Stephen King tale of terror, then look elsewhere.

Joyland is also nominally a mystery, but I didn't get much out of this aspect of the book. Without giving anything away, there's this murder mystery and then it just kind of gets resolved all at once without the typical back and forth, slow progress, clue gathering, false leads, etc. that most mystery novels are filled with.

If you're a fan of Stephen King, then Joyland is probably most similar in style to Hearts in Atlantis. Hearts in Atlantis is one of my favorite King books, and Joyland is definitely no Hearts in Atlantis. It just doesn't have the unique story hooks, the characters are a bit flatter, and the lynchpin story connecting the coming-of-age theme isn't quite as interesting. Joyland is still good, but I'd recommend Hearts in Atlantis ahead of it any day. If you've already read Hearts in Atlantis and want another great story, then pick up Joyland - it's good. Good enough that I blasted through it in a day without slowing down.

The narrator for Joyland is decent. He did a bunch of different voices well, and breathed some life into the character - but the whole thing did feel slightly BLAH to me. It was good, but nothing I'll remember forever.