Road Trip from Hell

Jack Ketchum's Joyride is dark, suspenseful, violent, and a hell of a trip. His writing possesses topnotch qualities that easily made me see why Stephen King said, "Don't open this book unless you intend to finish it in the same night" about Joyride. I was appalled, intrigued, and couldn't put the book down.

As much as I enjoyed the setup of the plot, I want to jump right into how much of a master Ketchum is at making the readers hate Wayne. I felt intense disgust toward this fictional man and just wanted to reach through the book and throttle him. He's disturbed, vulgar, deeply imbalanced, and yet it is impossible to stop reading because we want to know how far this sicko takes it. And boy does he take it all the way. Wayne is a nasty piece of work and we get a glimpse into his past when the cops go talk to Wayne's mother. After that encounter the pieces start to fall into place and we realize that with an upbringing by a woman who is described with words like poison and madness, that Wayne probably never stood a chance with a prize mother like that. I'm picturing something similar to Norman Bates, but perhaps worse, perhaps.

Wayne especially crept me out when he asked Carole about the details of how Howard raped her. He's indifferent and cold. He asks awful questions like he's asking about the weather instead and there is just no emotion. He's a psychotic robot in human skin trying to learn to feel something, but unfortunately blood, murder, and power are what he needs to even have something resembling true emotions within him. The way Wayne took those details and used them to rape the girl in the woods made my skin crawl. It was horrific and yet as the readers we cannot look away. Carole and Lee may have been locked in the car's trunk, but the readers were still Wayne's witnesses to it all, and that's what he wanted- witnesses.

The murder spree at the end reminded me of that awful story in Alaska where Michael Silka went on a spree killing and nine people were murdered. It's hard to think all those deaths could happen without police interference, but when the people are so close together it just happens too quickly...all the more terrifying.

One thing I wanted to see was for Carole to be less of a victim. I thought she had been killed in the crossfire during the end, so I was glad to see her survive. However, after learning this was a woman who had been molested as a child by her father, raped and beaten by her husband, and then kidnapped and put through hell by Wayne, I was dying for her to have just one awesome moment where she had the upper hand and beat the shit out of Wayne- just once! She didn't need to be the one to kill him necessarily, but I would have been so satisfied to see her be more than a victim for one strong scene. True, she did call Wayne out on his bullshit and tried to attack him a bit in the car earlier on, but I wanted something a little more gratifying.

Otherwise, I have very little complaints about the novel. It's packed with adrenaline, action, amazing imagery, and writing that I learned from, which is my favorite kind. Ketchum is absolutely an author worth studying. I look forward to reading more of his work.