Book review – Joyland – Stephen King

I was pretty excited when this book turned up in a tote at work and quickly grabbed a copy.  It went on my huge ‘to read’ pile but was destined to be read sooner rather than later.  So, when its turn came I snuggled down in my bed and started the first Stephen King book I’ve read in years.

Unfortunately I was quickly disappointed as I really wasn’t particularly enamoured by this book. Knowing that Stephen king has moved on from horror I was quite excited to read this new book. It was billed as a crime/ghost story and I suppose it was but I found it more of a coming of age tale, the crime and ghost bits just being second to the main story about the primary character, Dev and his relationship with a sick boy and his mother.

Having says that, Stephen King always writes well and I quite enjoyed the tale.

Is it up to his previous standard? No
Would I read future books of his? Of course, it is Stephen king after all.

3/5

A is for Author

Well it is the start of my new blogging journey. Blogging from A – Z. Unsurprisingly I will be starting with A and I think it would be silly if I didn’t write about being an author.

Most authors have someone who inspired them to start writing.  It may have been a teacher or parent but I would guess that for most it is someone who wrote the books they loved to read as a child. I, like most little girls growing up in the 70’s and 80’s loved Enid Blyton. I devoured everything I could get my hands on that had been penned by her from The Wishing Chair to Malory Towers.  So quintessentially English but nothing like the childhood I knew.   Growing up in the heart of East London couldn’t be further removed from the beautiful countryside and lashings of ginger beer the Famous Five were used to. But for me that was the appeal. Stories of boarding school, children detectives, a wonderland at the top of a tree and a chair that could fly constantly stimulated my imagination and the stories I wrote in my wallpaper covered exercise books were full of amazing fairies and rainbows and don’t forget lashing of ginger beer.

Enid Blyton

As I grew older my love for reading grew with me. I moved on to books by Judy Blume which helped me through my teenage years with stories such as “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret?” and Deenie. I still had a good stock of Enid Blyton’s to read and re-read though.

It was when I reached the age of about 15 that I discovered horror, in the form of none other than Stephen King. I still remember the first book of his I read; Cujo, the story of a dog who catches rabies told from the dog’s point of view. Amazing! This was a whole new world of reading for me and probably the first book that made me cry (I could never watch the film). This book was quickly followed by Pet Semetary, Thinner, Salem’s Lot and It (which was the inspiration for my story Chuckles). How could one author, scare me, amuse me and make me cry all in one book? I just wanted to be able to do that too.  Richard Laymon, James Herbert, Dean Koontz, Sean Hutson are amazing horror writers all of whom have inspired me and continue to do so.

The Original Cover I Had

Stephen King

Now, though there is an new genre it’s called YA or young adult. Wow, this didn’t exist when I was a young adult. So there was nothing to ease us in to the world of adult fiction.   That’s not necessarily a bad thing but I am envious of the teenagers of today, so many authors writing just for them.  The world of writing has expanded like never before and as subject matter pretty much anything goes. Young adults are not stupid or gullible and they don’t like to be patronised or humoured with watered down adult fiction. Oh no, YA tackles gritty subjects like  death, puberty, sex, divorce and an endless list of issues that affect the youth of today. But they are also still very young at heart and have the joy of books like Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. In fact the YA genre has exploded on to the scene so comprehensively that more adults than ever are buying books from this section.  Some of my new favourite authors write for the YA market, Amanda Hocking, Cassandra Clare and Lauren Kate to name but 3 and there are more being published every day.

So with all of this inspiration, all of these wonderful stories written by extremely talented authors how the hell will I ever measure up? You know what? It doesn’t matter, but I wont know until I try.

With 14 published short stories under my belt I am now in the process of writing two books, both aimed at the YA market. One is a paranormal romance and the other a genre fusion of paranormal and crime. I’ll keep you updated with how they progress.

Oh and by the way I still have a copy of The Wishing Chair on my shelf.

Wishing Chair

See you all soon.

Julie 🙂

Learning to write by reading

I would say that all writers (and I would be surprised if anyone disagrees) are avid readers. One of the ways you start to understand your love of writing is from reading the things you love to read, whether that be novels, stories, newspaper or anything else with writing on.

Stephen King has a lot to answer for. In a good way. Not only has he written many many fabulously thrilling books but he has also penned a book on how he does it “On Writing” is definitely on my bucket list to read, I mean who wouldn’t want a peep into the mind of the horror master.

Anyway I found this very interesting article where Damien Echols tells us how reading Mr King taught him to write.

Have a read and feel free to comment below.

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