Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

Carrie by Stephen King

48 reviews

vagrantheather's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

That opening scene was a little too scandalously upsetting for me. A good read though, and I liked the epistolary format. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Blood, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Animal death, Body shaming, Death, Sexual violence, and Violence

Minor: Miscarriage, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

chezler24's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

There's always something about Halloween/October that makes me want to pick up a Stephen King. We also had a 50 Years of Stephen King display at work, so I figured I'd better brush up on his work to get myself in the right headspace for designing the display. For this year's pick, I decided to revisit a previous read via audiobook. I figured Carrie would be a great pick with its fragmented storytelling devices from books to new reports to various POVs of different characters. We have notes of power, religion, trauma, high school torment, etc. all brewing to create the perfect environment for what occurred in this little town. King does an excellent job at clearly defining his characters so that each is easily discernable even with just a small amount of seeing them on the page. I heard this book was getting adapted into a tv series and it'll be interesting to see if it will stay more true to this book's format or if it will follow the movies' routes. It's wild to think that this book is the one that started Stephen King's career! Here's to 50 Years of King. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, and Blood

Moderate: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Racial slurs, Sexism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Miscarriage, Racism, Rape, and Sexual assault

witchintherain's review against another edition

dark tense medium-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

3.75

Read this with my partner for Halloween 🎃 First Stephen King book! Glad I got to finally read this classic horror novel. I enjoyed the different perspectives and article clippings in the novel and chilling writing. However, found the sexist and fatphobic descriptions of characters and racist language frustrating to read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Fatphobia, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Ableism, Alcoholism, Miscarriage, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

emadisonc's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

“Sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. It’s what you say when you spill a cup of coffee or throw a gutter ball when you’re bowling with the girls in the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Blood, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Body shaming, Racial slurs, and Racism

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Miscarriage, Rape, and Pregnancy

andrewhatesham's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Carrie is intriguing from the start, it doesn't take long to get pulled into the plot. We have this teenage girl who's relentlessly bullied, seemingly for no reason, and you want to know: what's her deal, and why does everyone hate her? You know kind of early on, how the story ends. So rather than a mystery, it's more of a "how did we get from point A to point Z" type of read.

The way the plot is structured is pretty cool, it's kind of like an epistolary novel, but instead of just letters, it has fictional news clippings and excerpts from books within the Carrie universe.

You get to experience things through the characters' perspectives, as well as retrospectively, through the fictional news clippings, book excerpts, and interviews of some of the characters. There's also Carrie's inner monologue, which was creatively woven throughout the story, that was my favorite element to the whole book! 

The build up to the final act is great. But then you get to the final act, and all that tension just fizzles out. It drags on and on. That is where the book fails me, I actually prefer the ending in the movie (1976 version), while I prefer everything else in the book, leading up to the end. There's more character development and background context, though it's still a quite short and fast paced book which I appreciate.

This sort of reads more like a crime thriller, with a sci-fi twist. I did know going into it that this was King's first novel and one of his less scary ones, so I'm not bothered by that.

Male-gaze-ickiness aside, this is mostly an enjoyable read, I would recommend it to those of you who like fictional crime stories and elements of sci-fi, or anyone who wants to pick up a King book but doesn't want to go for one of the scarier or lengthier ones. This is more sad than scary.

I will probably continue to read books by SK but I'm not in a rush to move on to the next.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Cursing, Mental illness, Miscarriage, and Sexual content

martyrbat's review against another edition

dark reflective 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? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, and Blood

Moderate: Body shaming, Child death, Death, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Murder

Minor: Miscarriage, Racism, Rape, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

mag_langjourney's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Gore, Miscarriage, Rape, Self harm, and Sexual content

octagon's review against another edition

dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Blood, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Racial slurs

cryptofauna's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

woah!! okay i can def see how this launched his career. just amazing. 
scary in its honesty and dark but it all feels so authentic? although it is more tense/ a thriller than i think it's a horror story. the events are horrifying but it wasn't scary or spooky in the traditional sense  
i also feel like knowing the vague plot of this book because of how popular it is kind of added to the tense vibe because you know whats gonna happen at prom but carrie goes anyway.  
well written with an interesting style (i do really enjoy a book that's a completion of different sources) but I did find it a little hard to keep track of sometimes, but i think it was mostly the kindle formatting making everything look the same w no breaks in between perspectives occasionally
read all in one day (especially as i tried to beat my kindle battery)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Drug use, Miscarriage, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Classism

sighclopss's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Blood, and Religious bigotry