Welcome back to Books With Cause. Let’s dive straight into my latest review.
This is a milestone edition of Books With Cause, as it is my one hundredth review. It was a little over a year ago that I started this site, and I never had any goals or targets in mind for this site. The only thing I ever promised was to be honest. If there’s a book I love, I’ll tell you why I love it. And if there’s a book I dislike, I will also tell you why, but in a constructive way. I take no joy in offending people, especially other authors who I know work hard on their books. If there’s a book I dislike, that’s a reflection of me and my tastes. It is never a reflection on the book. I hope that anyone who’s ever read a sample of my reviews will agree that I’ve always been fair and consistent on that front.
Likewise, I consider one hundred reviews a hell of a milestone. I didn’t know how long it would take me to get here, because that always depended on how fast I read each book. And that always depended on the thickness of the book combined with how much I was enjoying it.
To mark this occasion, I thought I’d do something special and review a book that is a bit of an old favourite. It had to be a Stephen King one, but I think this is one that I don’t think many will have expected.
The first time I read this book was back in 2018. At that point, I was working as a freelancer in the television and film industry. I’d pick up the occasional job, some lasting as long as 8 weeks, while others could be as short as a single day. This one was the latter. I was called up as a bit of a last-minute job for BBC’s Britain in Bloom. I was hired to travel up to Pateley Bridge and drive the crew back to London. This required me to catch multiple trains, including a lengthy leg from Euston to Manchester. Knowing that ahead of time, I took a book with me. Joyland by Stephen King. With the production paying for my train ticket and covering my expenses, I got myself a meal deal and a bag of Maltesers at the train station. I don’t often enjoy travelling by train, but this was a rare exception. I’ll never forget that experience of reading this book while eating Maltesers. I must have devoured about a third of the book on that journey alone. Rereading the book over the last few days took me right back to that memory.
Joyland is the second of three King novels published by Hard Case Crime, which I mentioned in a previous James M. Cain review. Therefore, this isn’t a horror novel as many would expect from King. It is very much in the style of a pulp novel. Published in 2013, it is framed there, but the entire story is told in first person as a flashback by Devin Jones, who tells us all about the summer of 1973 when he got a temporary job working at the amusement park, Joyland, while he was on break from university. His heart is broken when his girlfriend breaks up with him, but he throws himself into his new job, where he makes new friends in Tom and Erin. Tom and Erin are also only there for the summer before they return to their respective universities, but the three quickly form a tight bond, especially when it comes to working together to try and solve the mystery of the girl who was murdered in the ghost train years before.
As I said before, this isn’t a horror novel, but it does share parallels with King’s other work, most notably The Body, which was adapted into the movie Stand By Me. Both Joyland and The Body feature a writer looking back on a summer in his younger years with his best friends. Both stories are packed full of nostalgia. This story mentions music by the Beatles as well as albums by the Doors and Pink Floyd being current hits. Joyland is the kind of book where I wish I could climb inside it and live there. And who can blame me? Modern life sucks.
I stand by a previous statement I made that I believe every good book stands up to being read at least twice. And why not? People watch their favourite movies hundreds of times. There are already many novels that I’ve re-read multiple times, and Joyland is another that I will add to that list moving forward.
My Goodreads Rating: ★★★★★ (5 stars)
I just want to take this opportunity to thank you for reading this review. Whether this is the first article you’ve read on Books With Cause or if you’ve read all one hundred. Your support means a lot to me. So stick around because we’re just getting started.
