Carrie- Stephen King

Purchased:  Amazon | Chapters

Published: 1974
Length: 253 pages
ISBN: 0671039725
Genre: Horror/Suspense

Start Date: Sometime in 2007
Finished Date: Sometime in 2007

Where Found: Chapters-Indigo
Why Read: Stephen King fan all the way!

Summary: A teenage girl with telekinetic powers seeks normalcy among her terrorizing classmates, ignorant teachers, and her religious extremist mother.

Review:

First of all, let me advise you not to read this book under certain conditions, such as a small space, at nighttime, home alone, or anywhere you cannot seek comfort and normalcy immediately! I read the ending with shaky hands on a bus coming home and even without a mirror, I felt pale. It was a long ride home!

This wasn’t the first King novel I had read, but it was an amazing debut with crackling horror and an insightful look at emotional bullying of high school girls. Hidden under a blanket of events escalating to a monstrous climax that no other novel I’ve read can compete with is a shocking, high-energy revenge tale.

Carrie is ostracized from everyone around her, from teachers who give an air of false sympathy when deep down they are helpless or simply careless, to girl classmates who act haughty, ignorant, or purposely nasty, and slack-jawed boy classmates, some of whom harbour a secret desire to know her. Carrie returns home to her emotionally and sometimes physically abusive mother who demonizes her daughter from the time of her conception in the name of religious zealotry. When Carrie realizes that she has no one left to rely on and is betrayed and humiliated in a cruel prank, she exerts her revenge in a twisted, otherworldly fashion that brings out the bloody best of King.

He has expanded on themes of horror, suspense, and fantasy since Carrie, but has never created another character quite like her, whom we can both sympathize and fear. The 1976 movie starring Sissy Spacek in the title role is excellent in its own right, but can’t compare to the novel’s enormity. It jumpstarted Stephen King’s to the equivalent of jamming your finger in an electric outlet.

Rank: (A+)- A must-read!