7 discs
Narrator: Michael Kelly
2012
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio
Source: Library book
Description: College student Devin Jones took the summer job at Joyland hoping to forget the girl who broke his heart. But he wound up facing something far more terrible: the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and dark truths about life-and what comes after-that would change his world forever. (From the back cover)
Review: While this was, kind of, marketed as a mystery (one edition was published by Hard Case Crime) the murder is really the least important element of the story. I'm not sure if there was enough evidence provided for the reader to figure out who done it, but the author doesn't withhold clues. Once Devin knows it, we know it.
The heart of the story is a coming of age story, which it handles very well. Devin doesn't really learn any big lessons about life, but that gives it an air of realism.
Unfortunately, the climax of the book does lose a bit of tension if you remember the book's format, but overall I found it quite effective. The ending even brought a few tears to my eyes, even though the reader knows when they meet him, that the dying child Devin meets will actually die.
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