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I read a lot of books and I write about them on here. Mummy Geek is sometimes a guest blogger....people seem to love her.....Oh and you can find me on Twitter.....@book_geek_says. Shortlisted for Blog of the Year by the 2015 Love Stories Awards...THANK YOU!!

Wednesday 17 July 2013

Review: Joyland

Publisher: Hard Case Crime (Titan Books)
Price: £ 7.99

I wouldn't say I am the biggest and most die hard Stephen King fan in the world but I am indeed a fan!! I have thoroughly enjoyed everything I have read by him from Under The Dome to his short story collections and beyond. When Titan Books offered me this I was keen with a capital K, especially as it looked a bit different to other SK books and stories I have read in the past.

This book is all about Dev who joins the wonderful troops of Joyland for a holiday job...but it all goes a bit tits and defo doesn't end there. 

Once again, King draws you in to a slightly peculiar and alien world (this time due to the fact that this is the 60s) with a compelling and slow build up of plot, characters and constructs. SK never seems to fail in making a slow start a brilliant start to a book!! I think it's SK's descriptions that do it for me, they are always so vivid but they are never over the top. 

The characters in the novel are brilliant. Dev who narrates this entire book in the first person from a retrospective position as a dude in his 60s in the present day is a babe from start to finish. He looks back on his time tenderly and with humour and a twinge of nostalgia and maybe regret but it is lovely none the less. Lane was a bit of of a dude too to start with and I have to say I developed crushes on both.

I'm not sure if this is a thriller, a ghost story, a mystery novel or what to be precise. However, I am content that the genre is a bit blurred and I'm also content that it may not have one specific genre at all. 

The whole novel is gripping from start to finish. The characters are wonderful and vary so dramatically that you can't believe that that many have been crammed in to such a short book. Joyland is somewhere you will defo want to visit by the end of it and you will defo want to work there too. It is incredible to see a book that is so intense and dramatic but has room for some beautifully tender moments.

Happy Reading

Book Geek
:-)

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