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Carrie

Carrie

List Price: $32.50
Your Price: $22.10
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A Book You Have to Read For Yourself
Review:
This was a book that I read and didn't really enjoy. It was confusing to read and was too gory for me. The book had a good story line but wasn't my type of book. I have read a few other Stephen King novels and have enjoyed them tremendously but this was not one of them. To me it seemed confusing how the story jumped from telling about the past to reading about what people said about it in other books. I can usually read books that jump back and forth but this book made it really difficult. What the people in the book did seemed so cruel that it was hard to read. It just made you almost mad at them. If it would have been written a little differently it might have been fine. I had trouble picking the book up again and finishing reading it but you want to know what happens in the end. In some ways it had suspense but not enough to hold my attention. This book could be considered well written to some people and most likely is but it wasn't written in a way that I consider good. It defiantly had potential and could have been a book I enjoyed. Maybe one day I will read it again and it will be, but at this point I don't think it is. I think this book is for, for one, a strong reader who can understand complicated writing and for two, I recommend it for someone who can take the gore and how mean the people were to Carrie and how Carrie got revenge. I would also recommend people to read it for themselves and make there own judgement because I make it sound like a terrible book but you could enjoy it.


Rating: 5 stars
Summary: CARRIE (DOUBLEDAY AND COMPANY, INC. /1974)
Review: With the advent of school shootings (e.g. Columbine, the Michael Carneal case here in Kentucky, etc.) and the rash of violence that has escalated among young adults, it seems as if Stephen King's first novel has only grown in relevance over the years. Although billed as a horror story, the horror of "CARRIE" is all too human (even the business about telekinesis is presented as a genetic/physiological phenomenon and not a supernatural one) as the reader is introduced to the title character: a shy , withdrawn sixteen-year-old girl who lives with her mother (a religious maniac Hell-bent on keeping her daughter pure from the "cravings of the flesh" while personifying a wrathful God full of vengenece and judgement instead of a loving God as personified by the mercy of Christ Jesus) and has little to do with anyone at her school where she is ridiculed daily. When a couple of her classmates decide to play the ultimate practical joke on her, Carrie enacts a terrible revenge on the whole town who has no idea about her secret ability whereby she can make things move by the sheer force of her will. The effectiveness of the story works on two different levels: as a compulsive page turner guaranteed to keep you in suspense, and as a sorrowful commentary on the cruelty of human beings who fail to put themsevles in other people's shoes or who channel their grief, jealousy, anger, self-loathing, and/or hatred and misery into making another's life a living hell which in turn brings the persecutor a sense of sick satisfaction. But such evil must be exorcised instead of exercised upon the weaknesses of another, and thus is true Christian love and morality all the more important to be encouraged. If King had given Carrie White a shotgun or a pistol to weild instead of her telekinetic power then the story could have been tailor made for the front page news. And that's the real horror of "CARRIE" in that it hits too close to home as far as teen violence is concerned. HARSH LANGUAGE: about 139 words, VIOLENCE: about 22 scenes, SEXUAL SUGGESTIVENESS: about 13 scenes including a sado-masochistic relationship between Christine Hargensen and her boyfriend Billy Nolan who are the ringleaders behind the prom night joke which pushes Carrie over the edge and into violent retribution.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Telekinetic Revenge
Review: After reading The Green Mile, another novel by Stephen King, I decided to see if Carrie stood up to the same level of greatness. Regarded as "Gory and horrifying...you can't put it down," by the Chicago Tribune, Carrie entertains readers with an eerie story of a young girl growing up in Chamberlain, Maine as the focal point of others' ridicule and cruel jokes. Margaret White, Carrie's mother and also a religious zealot, plays a large role in why her daughter is always teased. Carrie possesses a special telekinetic power and often times expresses her bottled-up frustration by utilizing her power. One day at school, Carrie is asked by a popular boy to accompany him to the prom. Thinking the many years of taunting are approaching an end, she agrees to his request. Once at the prom, Carrie realizes she was wrong about the teasing, but this time her classmates take things a little too far and drive her over the edge. The future of Chamberlain now lies in the hands of Carrie White.
Carrie is a swift read, full of colloquial dialogue, horror, and various literary devices that make the story very interesting. I really enjoyed reading Carrie and plan to continue with more Stephen King novels. I recommend this book to all those in search of a good book, excluding young students because of the many sexual references that are found throughout the story. Overall I rate it four stars out of five because the setting often changes from past to present, causing some confusion.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Carrie by Stephen King
Review: Carrie was the first book I have ever read by Stephen King. It is a great horror story about a girl who basicly gets back at her enemies. Carrie has been tricked and tourched. She has a freak mom and sooner or later it all comes to an end. I would reccomend this book to anyone who likes books about getting revenge, Likes Stephen King books, or someone who has never read Stephen King. It is a great first selection!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Revengeful Outcast
Review: Carrie, a teenage reject, religiously victimized by her mother has had her dream chance of a lifetime. One of the most sought after boys at school asks her to the prom. Then there's the mayhem!
A brilliant book. Better than the movie. (TYPICALLY!)
Stephen King, the best writer in the world, bar none, has graced us with his first ever masterpisec, which paved the way for every other book, novella and short story he has ever written. A GEM! ;-)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Carrie
Review: I thought Carrie was a pretty good book.It was a bit slow in the beginning, but the climax was good.This book would have been better, if there was more action in the beginning. The descriptions were just perfect though.The bit of extra information on telekenisis was helpful in understanding the plot.I recommend this book to a person who just can't resist a good horror novel.Simply a masterpiece!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: carrie book review
Review: it was very good enjoyable and i liked it. Stephen king used his imagination a lot.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A coming of justice story ...
Review: The first time I read Carrie I thought it smaked of a "first try." After having been in love with "IT" for months I found "Carrie" a bit lacking. But then I read it over and over and over and I found that not only did I sympathize with Carrie, I wanted to be her, help her, recognize her. I could swear I'd seen her walking the halls of my high school, that I had been her standing in the shower, that I had looked through Chris' eyes and threw things.

The cruelty and assurence of being on the right side that King won't let you get away from is what makes this book a perfect documentary on how adolecents treat each other. The terror lies not in the decriptions of gory deaths, of blood and guts but in the fact that everyone went through this, everyone put someone else through this, and people are still going through this. Being beaten down, judged, torn between home and school because neither place is really safe.

Of course you cheer Carrie as she burns the city and destroys her enemies. How else could one externalize what years of taunting relly feel like, what they actually do? Carrie's classmates destroyed whatever they could of Carrie, and so did she. But she could get a hold of a lot more.

No, "Carrie" isn't "IT." "Carrie" is a lean and precise piece of being a teenager, and a reminder of the horrors that King doesn't have to make up ...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A fun read, originally told by a young King
Review: The story of Carrie White, although not told conventionally, is a fast and fun read, if not one of King's best.

Carrie White is the student you probably remember from one of your schooling experiences: the plump outcast who never achieved any semblance of popularity and remained something of an outcast from the clique-based social hierarchy. I remember a girl like Carrie White well, albeit in elementary school not High School. King developes Carrie well, a character to be sympathized with but not pitied, a somewhat lowly character but not a pathetic one. Character development is also important in the characterization of Carrie's mother, who cannot be made too evil or over-the-top while still being oppressive, and King strays close to the line without going over.

But then again, people rarely talk about the characterization in a King novel, so I suppose I must devote time to the sci-fi element: Carrie White is a telekenetic, capable of moving objects with her mind. Like Ramona Quimby in Roald Dahl's children's book "Ramona", Carrie begins to train herself and develop her powers, until she is capable of essentially everything, something she proves in the tour-de-force latter third of the novel.

As mentioned, Carrie is not told conventially. King abandons the traditional novel format and instead tells the story as if it really happened, citing invented scientific studies, autobiographies, eye-witnesses, police reports and interveiws. This either adds to or detracts from the novel, depending on your opinion. I'm on the fence; while on one hand this is certainly fresh, on the other it seems perhaps King did not have enough material to fill a traditonal novel and resorted to this format instead. Similarily, I am tempted to give the book 5 stars, but the negative part of me is going to prevail, if only because the specific event that leads to Carrie's unleashing of her power seems poorly thought out for such a significant event. 7.5/10

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A good book but drowned out in some areas
Review: This was the first Stephen King book I read, and while I liked it, it was "Misery" that made me a fan.

Carrie centers on a girl (Carrie White) who is relentlessly picked on in school, a girl who seems to be the butt of every joke. Her mother is overly religious and always punishing her, and only her telekinetic powers can save her.

Carrie is written in two aspects. There's the bit (mostly called "The Shadow Exploded) that talks about events that have already passed, and seems to be analyzing it, while the other is the story itself.

For me, this was where the story went down hill. Since the book begins with us already knowing how it's going to turn out (the main story anyway, not the ending) the only thing we have to worry about is getting there. Yeah, it's horrific and suspenseful, but truly, I felt like some of the fun was taken out of the book because I was already told by the author just how the Prom was going to turn out. In short, the only surprising aspect of the book was its remarkable ending and that saved it from three stars.

Carrie wasn't really a boring read. I could care less about the moments where the events Carrie caused were being analyzed. I wanted to SEE it happening, not "hear" about it. The main story itself was a joy to read, but it's interrupted too much by the scientific analysis.

And the characters were no fun either. Carrie, she was interesting and so was Sue, but that's about it. I think what really took the joy out of the characters was Carrie's overly religious mother. At first you want to believe she's just a psycho, but King really took her far beyond the boundaries of a "believeable" character. She wasn't just a psycho, she was from another world! Carrie's mother seemed to subtract a little from the story for me because she just came off as too high-strung. She was too far beyond my imagination to think of as "believable".

Carrie wasn't a bad book, just not what I expected from someone who is generalized as a master of the genre. Carrie was by no means a scary book. The joy and experience of it was taken out from the very beginning. I would say Stephen King's later works are much more exciting than this.


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