Reviews

Carrie by Stephen King

jazmynn_'s review against another edition

dark sad tense

2.0

uranerdharvey's review against another edition

dark sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

mielybooks's review against another edition

4.0

toca bastantes temas importantes como:
* confirma que el extremismo religiosos (y cualquier) es sumamente peligroso me dio tanto asco como era la mamá ODIE A LA MAMÁ!
* la falta de educación sexual (menstruación,masturbacion etc) pensaba que era pecado

robotnik's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I - like everyone and their mother - watched the Carrie movie about five billion times. It may have been my first real horror movie, I have no idea. I just know I really enjoyed it. So, when my father gave me a gift certificate for the local book store for Christmas and let me frolic within, I found it and had to get it. 

The book was way different than I thought it was going to be, and I kind of liked it for that. It interspersed these different articles in between scene/POV switches (such as newspaper articles, science papers, recordings of interviews - all dealing with the "Carrie" event), which I thought was a really cool and interesting way to cover bits and pieces of the story that the characters would have been unaware of during the events taking place. 

The characters were all very well-written and each have a distinctive voice. The likable ones are sympathetic, even if they aren't always nice, and the despicable ones are just downright nasty. 

Carrie's a very well known story by now, but I think anyone who hasn't read the book should still give it a try as there's big differences between it and the movie. 

worms_and_words's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

maedae4's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This was a lot of fun to read while still creating a deeply sympathetic main character. I watched the 1976 version for the first time over the summer and then wanted to read the source material. There are a lot of striking differences, and it's sort of a toss-up of which version is better. The movie is definitely more streamlined... Margaret White's death is much more satisfying in the movie, campy though it may be to get crucified after a long life of worship. All of the kind/not terrible instincts of various teachers get condensed into one character, Ms. Desjardin, who offers some much-needed relief.

Most notably, the movie doesn't bear the burden of all of Stephen King's extra text. The "newspaper clippings," academic articles, interview excerpts, and memoir excerpts do nothing for the written story. Actually, they seem to hinder the story, as they interrupt the action and deflate most of the tension by immediately revealing that almost everyone in the book will perish, and discouraging readers from making attachments to any of them. I appreciate that these "found text" bits gesture towards the larger ramifications of someone having TK and cheekily depicts how this would create panic in our real world. But the book only would have gotten better and shorter without all of that other stuff, which is window dressing that adds nothing to the display itself. Also, let's not forget, every so often there's a horribly outdated, racist, homophobic line or two. (In the intro of this version, Stephen King admits that some of the book is dated, but he hopes that the story itself holds up, and I found that to be the case.)

But! There are some things that were fantastic to read. My favorite change in the book was the fantastic buildup of Carrie's telekinetic abilities. There's a much more gradual and consistent exploration of that in the book, where Carrie remembers her power (13 years of abuse having eclipsed that part of her personhood) and then hones it. She goes from sweating buckets and getting headaches while lifting a hairbrush to lifting her whole dresser to the ceiling and down again with complete ease. It's a beautiful ramping-up of tension and power that suggests, even without the spoilers, that she sure is going to use that power.

I also really enjoyed the way the narrator inhabited everyone and anyone. It's been a while since I read a book like that, and I forgot how nice it is to have direct access to so many experiences. Stephen King is good at finding the vantage point from which to view a scene. I also enjoyed all the tidbits and family history about Margaret and the rest of Carrie's family. (Though Lawrence D. Cohen expertly turns Carrie's father into a deadbeat sinner who launches his wife further into her religious mania.) And of course I loved being read to by Sissy Spacek, who has so much empathy and such a great sense of how to deliver lines from different characters.

The endings are strikingly different. I listened to an episode of the podcast "Unspooled" where one of the hosts suggested that Carrie is the equivalent of a school shooter, and he didn't feel that bad for her because she was a murderer. I thought that was a stretch, based on the movie. But this take feels eerily relevant to the book. Carrie is on her way home from prom, dripping with blood, when she remembers that she doesn't have to take this shit anymore and DECIDES to go back to school and kill everyone. She is not having an instinctual reaction to being humiliated and tortured--she is CHOOSING to go back, lock the doors, and electrocute her classmates. And then she decides to do that to her WHOLE TOWN. She breaks the fire hydrants so that no one can put out the fires. She breaks gas mains so that buildings will explode. And there are no stormtrooper deaths like those in the movie; you can't pump your fist while reading the slow, drawn-out, horrible descriptions of death. Pages and pages! Body after body individually described, with names and jerky electrical movements and smells and textures of their remains. It's really disturbing and gruesome, and Carrie is much more deliberate about her vengeance. Ultimately, if I don't side with Carrie, I don't understand what this work of art and its adaptations are about. But the scope and depth of her havoc WAS scary and foreboding to read, especially now that Americans have to expect to get shot at school or at the mall. It's tragic and chilling that Carrie's existence, and the whole book, culminates in that concentration of fear, violence, and anger, with no attempt at empathy from the objective narrator.

Anyway, the writing was a bit flawed in my opinion, but the story is so good!!

esquared's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

anna_almut's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

bzzlarabzz's review against another edition

4.0

 Never mind me, I'm just 40 years behind on my reading.

This is a horror classic for a reason. Its original movie adaptation also deserves its accolades. I liked how the book used different sources to tell the story from multiple perspectives, such as an investigative report, public services alerts, and the memoir of a participant in the events. This variety was interesting and also built some suspense. The book does suffer from early King/1970s problems like casual racism and misogyny. Also, was it common for people to slap each other across the face back then? I lost count of the face slaps, some coming from otherwise reasonable and kind people. Despite these issues, I found parts of it to be surprisingly feminist, with Carrie owning her power. Admittedly, that didn't turn out well for anyone and it's implied that anyone with telekinetic powers (all female for genetic reasons) will use them for evil, but still ... sometimes I wanted to do a little "good for her" toast. 

leafonthewind's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0