Joyland--My take on the novel with spoilers!

 It's no surprise that as a horror genre enthusiast, I'm a huge fan of the master of horror, Stephen King.

For quite some time, I was unable to do a lot of reading and when I finally found the time, the first thing I thought about was reading a Stephen King book.

Now I'm not entirely sure why I picked Joyland of all the other books I haven't read by Stephen King. Maybe it was the cover? Maybe because it was supposed to be a mystery? Who doesn't love a good horror mystery?

Stephen King is no doubt blessed with the ability to draw readers right in within the first page. You are introduced to the protagonist and drawn to his story. Now, I haven't read the author's recent work so I was mildly surprised that this story was told in the first person.

For some reason, first-person stories don't appeal to me as such. I like stories told from the third person in which I get to experience the whole fictional world rather than just see the world through a character's eyes.

Also, stories told in the third person don't stick to one person. The story is also told through other character's viewpoints and we are introduced to another way of looking at things. 

The protagonist of the story, Devin Jones is a sixty-something man who recounts the events of a summer she spent In Joyland when he was twenty-one years old. He has a girlfriend called Wendy who pretty much strings him along before unceremoniously dumping him in a letter.

Devin throws himself into his work to get over his heartbreak and spends time doing a lot of odd jobs around the amusement park called Joyland. He befriends two other kids who are working during the summer just like him: Tom and his girlfriend Erin.

Devin is young and in his prime and keeps getting a crush on pretty much every female character in the book except for Madame Fortuna who must have been too eccentric for his tastes.

She's the one who tells Devin that he will meet two children over the summer who will change his life.

Devin has an incredibly eventful summer. He impresses his boss by entertaining kids wearing the mascot's costume, saves a girl's life when she is choking, saves an employee's life as well. The latter is Eddie, a gruff old man who calls Devin kiddo and isn't super thrilled that he survived a heart attack. Devin tries to do a good deed by coming over to visit him at the hospital and bringing over a photo of his wife, but Eddie wishes he hadn't survived and was reunited in the afterlife with his daughter who died because his wife was too busy being a negligent mother.

Nevertheless, Eddie is grateful enough to Devin as we learn in the climax.

Meanwhile, the second kid Devin is destined to meet is a disabled boy called Mike who is on the verge of death. His mother Annie is aloof and likes to keep Devin at arm's length because she has too much on her plate as is.

But Devin forces his company on her and even teaches her how to fly a kite. Annie is impressed by his kite-flying skills and lets him interfere in her life a bit. She even allows Devin to scream at her when she's having a breakdown after being upset to learn that her son is going to die soon.

Devin manages to do something nice for Mike by convincing his boss to grant him the favour of lending the park to Mike for a day because after all, Devin did help the park's reputation quite a bit.

Mike has a nice day at Joyland and Annie is grateful enough to Devin to let him stay the night with her.

Where's the horror and mystery part in all of this?

It's sparse and forced in this tale of a twenty-one-year-old getting over his ex-girlfriend

The horror/mystery part is supposed to be centred around the Fun Horror House in the park where a woman was murdered. Her name was Linda Gray and it is speculated that her ghost haunts the ride.

When Devin takes a ride in it with Tom and Erin, Tom is the only one who sees the ghost and after that incident, leaves the park and never wants to talk about it again.

But Erin does. She decides to become Nancy Drew and find photos and make long-distance calls so she can hand it over to Devin. But she isn't as efficient at solving mysteries as Nancy Drew. She supplies some hints to Devin who is clearly no Sherlock Holmes. The only vague clue? The guy had a tattoo that rubbed off because of the heat. A lot of pages later Devin realizes there's another clue: the man Linda was with, who was also her killer, wore a hat that was tilted. And that his dye kept running.

But the story takes on another arc: Mike, the disabled boy, has a sixth sense kind of gift. He can sense ghosts, give messages to Devin, and send off ghosts to the afterlife.

All this seems a bit forced and convenient. There's a mystery to be solved, a killer to be tackled with, and the protagonist has nothing to do with it.

He's a side character in the very story he's writing about in his sixties.

Who is the killer? The guy who operates rides: Lane Hardy.

Just like Mike, he too seems to possess a sixth sense because as soon as Devin realizes who the killer must be, Lane calls him up and tells him to meet at the park.

It's almost as if the author realized he rambled far too long about a twenty-one year old not getting over his ex and must now end the book immediately.

So miraculously, Lane knows the exact moment Devin has figured out it is him and intends to kill him.

But wait!

Mike gets a visit from a ghost that night. Not Linda Gray who has walked into the light, but from Eddie who suffered another heart attack at the hospital and died. He felt like he owed Devin his life and so comes to Mike, because he's the medium, to wake up his mother who is great with guns—another convenient factor.

Lane takes Devin up on a ride like in true villainy style and even pistol-whips Devin. Annie arrives just in time to take a perfect shot and kill Lane.

All things are wrapped up nicely and in the end, Mike dies and Devin is called back by Annie to the beach where he taught Annie how to fly a kite. The ashes are put in a pocket and the kite flies away freely.

The End.

The story is a page-turner for sure but mostly because of Stephen King's writing prowess. The story itself is weak and the horror/mystery parts are forced rather than flowing seamlessly within the story.

Mike's special ability sticks out like a sore thumb and is quite frankly, too convenient in wrapping up the story.

For an author who has always managed to put realism in his stories and bring characters to life, Joyland, unfortunately, doesn't seem too lively.

But of course, for any Stephen King fan, it is a must-read even if you will be a little disappointed.