Carrie

Rating:
Summary: Chills for a Carrie
Review: Carrie was a novel I was reluctant to read. For one thing, the movie didn't impress me as much, and it's hard to read about someone that shares your namesake. But as soon as I pulled it from behind a rack of dusty books in a public library, I knew it was fate. I was immediatley pulled in, wondering how Stephen King could have such a wonderful first book.
It starts with interviews from neighbors and students. Carrie White is a senior who has been scarred from a religious fanatic mother. Carrie also happens to have trained herself in telekinesis. These interviews all lead up to the fateful night of the Prom.
Do yourself a favor. Read Carrie.
You'll be spellbound.

Rating:
Summary: Chills from a Carrie
Review: I was a little reluctant to read Stephen King's Carrie. As I wasn't impressed with the movies and have been ridiculed for sharing Carrie's name, I wasn't sure. But as soon as I found it shoved behind a rack of books at a dusty public libaray, I knew it was serendipity. I was immediatley taken in by Stephen King's writing style. He makes you feel comfortable, and it doesn't seem like a horror story until something tramautic happens, as shown in It and Carrie. The point of the story is Carrie White, a girl who has been ruined by her religious fanatic mother and happens to have telekinesis. The story is told through interviews, newspaper articles, and some experiences of Carrie, all leading up to prom night. Stephen King is a MASTER, and of Misery, 'Salem's Lot, Night Shift, and Christine, this is his BEST.
Do yourself a favor. Read Carrie and be spellbound

Rating:
Summary: A different kind of scary
Review: So you think you know Stephen King? You think that he is all vampires and aliens? Well, let his first novel prove you wrong. Man, this book was strange, but very good all and all. King takes this innocent young, tourtured highschool girl and turns her into a person to haunt your dreams. Throughout the book you learn of Carrie White and her power to move things. Now, im sure most people have seen the movie, but the ending is so much creepier in this book than it is in the movie. It is a little bit slow paced, but it is all worth it by the end. It is the kind of scary that makes you shiver. Not like you are afraid to go to sleep, but more in a way that it is just so strange that it messes with your head. This is the book that skyrocketed King's career. His writing style was a little different back then, but not bad. I thought this was a really cool book and most definetly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Quick paced thriller
Review: This book is unlike Stephen King's other material because it is short and to the point. Whereas in some of his other books, he will spend 700 pages developing a plot, this story is told in 200 more-or-less pages, and it moves from the get-go. I love the style that he uses, interspersing tidbits from media reports, and the way that he inserts peoples' thoughts sporadically into the flow of thought. It is a scintillating debut novel for a writer, much better than most people's first works, and I would reccommend it to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Revenge never felt this good
Review: After seeing the movie I decided to read the novel by Stephen King. Out of all of King's novels, this one has the best story yet. Carrie White is a fantastic character. I love the fact that King had this idea of a shy, scared, and abused girl in highschool unleash her ultimate telekinetic powers to destroy her classmates. It kinda reminds me of the Incredible Hulk. Don't get Carrie angry, or she will kill you. The book does have a couple of drawbacks though. Possibly the greatest drawback is that King says nothing about Carrie's life between 3 and 16 years of age. Stephen King practically left that huge gap in the book. But you have to remember...This was Stephen King's first novel ever published. King also says in the intro that he needed money fast for his family and had to write this novel in a rush. But overall, if you love novels on power and revenge, then this novel is a must read. I gurantee you that after finishing the novel you'll say "Good for those [darn] classmates. They derserve it." To me this is the greatest revenge story ever written.

Rating:
Summary: A great first novel
Review: Considering that this is Stephen King's first novel, this is an amazing book. In "Carrie," King does his best job out of all his books at developing a character that the reader can really just feel for. He gets you to feel so sorry for her for having to put up with all of the things that happen to her, whether it be at her school where she is constantly tormented by her peers, or at her home, where she must live with her psycho-religious mother. While doing this, he also manages to develop a diabolical plot that leads up to one of the most stunning climaxes of any novel. I definitely recommend that you get this book.

Rating:
Summary: The Taste of Sweet Revenge
Review: I have recently just finished reading the book titled Carrie By: Stephen King. I feel that this book has got to be one of my favorite books that I have read in a while. I like to read and when I read books like this it really makes me want to read more. This book, unlike others gives you a feel for what the main character "Carrie White" has been going through for her whole life. Carrie White is just a really nice innocent girl who just want to have a couple of friends but is constantly picked on by her peers. Then when she goes home all she has is a religious mother who forces her to pay horrible prices for her "sins." She doesn't have any friends and her mother won't even let her have any friends, she says it is the "devil". One day just like any other day she goes to school and goes into the locker room just like she would any day. After P.E. she gets out of her clothes and steps into the shower with the other girls to wash up when suddenly she feels blood running down her leg. The other girls tell her it is her period but she just doesn't listen, she tought she was dying. The other girls started throwing tampons at her. From that day on Carrie has been tormented for life she couldn't even go to school with out being told something.

She was invited to the prom by this really nice guy and she decided that she wanted to go. She went home and made her dress and went to the prom. When she arrived there something so horrible happened you wouldn't believe that teenagers could be so mean to one girl.

Once you read this book you will just fall in love with it. Once you pick it up you won't want to put it down, you will be up all night reading it. I have read a couple of Stephen King's books and I really enjoy them. If you have read any of his books you would know what I mean. What suddenly brought on this idea for this book. Was he tormented in his youth, or was his wife? If so his writing has been his worst revenge. I recomend this book to all of my friends and family members and especially you!It is a really great choice of book for anyone into mystery and horror types of books.

Rating:
Summary: Carrie
Review: Ridiculed from the first grade through senior high school, Carrie White exacts a dreadful revenge on her school and her town when she unleashes telekinetic powers the night of her senior prom.

Rating:
Summary: It might be raw, but its good for a debut novel
Review: Maybe its trying to teach us a lesson about bullying and picking on others. Maybe its trying to communicate how destructive religion can be when taken to the extremes and abused. Maybe its about telekinetic powers and the possibility that they lurk inside those we wouldn't even suspect. Carrie might be any, all, or none of those things, but one thing is for sure and that is that Carrie is about karma. Chamberlain, Maine apparently needs a hard lesson taught to it about "what goes around comes around" and Carrie White delivers it with destructive capabilities by the time the book is coming to a close.

Stephen King may think his early work is "raw", whatever that means to him, but that doesn't make it any less engaging. True that his early novels, especially those written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, are not as long or epic as novels such as Insomnia, It, or Desperation, but the sheer stripped out horror of Carrie, Pet Semetary, and The Bachman Books are enough to put fans of the early books or the later ones in their bedrooms with all the lights on, wondering what lurks behind each corner. The writing style is definitely more primitive than his other novels, and the plot moves a lot quicker, seeing as the total page count comes in at 245 in the version I own, but it moves at a good speed, building suspense throughout the plot that lets the reader know that the climax is going to be quite the bloodbath.

Taking place in a small town in Maine, as most King novels do, the story follows one Carrie White, picked on and harassed by the majority of her peers at school only to come home to a religiously fanatical mother who forces her to pay horrible prices for her so called "sins". It's enough to make anyone suffer a mental breakdown, and as the plot unfolds, Carrie discovers that not only does she have the power of telekinesis, but that the strength that comes with this power is daunting.

So, when the school Prom comes around and a fellow classmate named Susan Snell begins to feel regret for picking on Carrie, she gladly pushes her boyfriend Tommy Ross into taking the tormented outcast to the school dance. However, the problem comes up when various other classmates not so regretful or fond of Carrie pull the most devastating trick they can come up with to ruin White's Prom Night: which, surprisingly or not depending on if you've seen the film, involves pouring pigs blood all over Carrie when she is crowned Prom Queen as a joke. Let the chaos begin.

Spending the last quarter of the novel discussing the destruction that Carrie wreaks on her hometown, the novel gradually builds up to this point by interrupting the flow of the plot to include letters from classmates, excerpts from books on Carrie's chaotic lashback against her classmates, and newspaper/ticker updates involving the destruction. While it is a very suspenseful buildup, sometimes the interruptions are not appreciated and for anyone who has seen the movie, not much of it comes as a surprise. If you've seen the film you'll probably find it superior to the book, strangely enough. But if you've never been exposed to the movie version, the book is sure to grab you quite well.

This is far from Stephen King's strongest effort to date, but it is quite original and was one of the better 1970's horror novels with one of the better 1970's films to go with it before spawning a horrible sequel which King had nothing to do with. As much as the plot focuses on telekinesis, there is a lesson to be learned from it, whether King intended to include it or not, and that lesson is that you reap what you sew. Her classmates harassed and ostracized her, she decided to strike back, its that simple. King seems to have an odd knack for predicting the future as both this and his now out of print early novel Rage (about school shootings taking place years before Columbine) both accurately predict the violence capable in everyone, especially high school students recently it seems, when they are cast out of large groups. If you're not a King fan but want something good by him, get Pet Semetary or some of the Dark Tower books or maybe Different Seasons. If you are a King fan but haven't read this, get it whether you've seen the movie or not. It will give you a little more insight into the differences between the novel and the film and will show you the early stages of King's writing style from an angle thats not easy to find.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing
Review: Wow! What a great book! Out of the 4 Stephen King books that I've read (pet semetary, thinner, salems lot), this one is now my fave. This is a very disturbing story about a girl who is an outcast, large in part due to her religiously fanatic mother. She is often the center of jokes and harassment by her peers, and..well we all know how this one ends.

Let me say that this is much better than the movie. All the extra detail that this contains, and the graphic descriptions, make this worth the read.