Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Carrie by Stephen King

171 reviews

shadymist's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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andrewhatesham's review against another edition

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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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bluestar_apologist's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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

5.0


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lethargicbat's review against another edition

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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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emilie_readsthrillers's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad fast-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

5.0


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nasab's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

أول تجربة حقيقية لي في تصنيف الرعب وأول تجربة لي مع ستيفن كينج. شجعني حجم الكتاب كونه لا يتعدى الثلاثمئة صفحة.
لم تكن لدي فكرة مسبقة عن الرواية، أو هذا ما ظننته حتى قرأت الصفحات الأولى وتذكرت وصف صديقتي المشوش لأحداث الفيلم المقتبس من الرواية قبل حوالي عشر سنوات عندما كنا في الصف المتوسط لقتل الملل أثناء المحاضرة التوعوية في المدرسة ☺️ ذاكرتي لا تكون بهذه القوة عندما أحتاجها فعلًا، ولكن لم تتأثر تجربتي لأن الكاتب نفسه كان يحرق الأحداث بين الحين والآخر.
أسلوب الرواية في عرض مقتطفات من جرائد وأخبار وكتب خيالية راقت لي جدًا وعززت من اندماجي.
لدي مشكلة الترجمة، هي لم تخطئ المعنى ولكنها لم تكن سلسة تمامًا بالنسبة لي ووجدت قراءة النسخة الإنجليزية أسهل، ولا أعرف ما السبب بالضبط.
نأتي للقصة،
بالرغم من معرفتي المسبقة بما سيحدث كنت لا أزال خائفة وأتمنى أن تنقلب الأحداث لصالح بطلتنا. 
كاري قد تبدو شريرة في ظل أحداث الحفل المدرسي وعدد القتلى والمصابين الناتجين عن أفعالها التدميرية، لكني لم أستطع منع نفسي من دعمها في انتقامها، والرغبة في أن تُلحق المزيد من الأذى على من تنمروا عليها. يبدو من العدل أن تمتلك هذه القوى المتفجرة لتسوية الأمور معهم، ولكنه من المؤسف أيضًا أن الأذى النفسي الذي واجهته يساوي الأذى الجسدي الذي عرضتهم له.
موقف سو سنيل الأخلاقي مهم جدًا لعرض التخبط الذي يشعر به الإنسان عند التوفيق بين المبادئ الشخصية والرغبة في الاندماج مع المجتمع. سو سنيل لم تكن لتتنمر على كاري من تلقاء نفسها ولكن رغبتها في إرضاء كريس (الشخص المهيمن في المجموعة) جعلتها فردًا من القطيع منعدم الرأي إلى أن استيقظ ضميرها وأدركت ما تفعله وتقوله. سو ندمت حقًا ورغبت بالتكفير عن خطئها بالطريقة الوحيدة التي تؤكد لها صدق ندمها. لم ترضى بعقاب المعلمة فقط حتى لا تخسر تذكرة الحفل، بل عوقبت وتنازلت عن الحضور بإرادتها. موقف سو سنيل يعطي أملًا بأن الإنسان يستطيع التغير للأفضل.

لم أتوقع أن تؤلمني رواية رعب بهذا الشكل العميق، شعرت بعدم الراحة طوال القراءة
سوى في مقاطع قصيرة من السعادة اللحظية التي عاشتها كاري قبل أن يتشوه كل شي في الحادثة التي هدت السد المتهالك الذي أقامته وأدت إلى فيضان الغضب الذي دمرها وجرف كل شيءٍ في طريقها.





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laurzj82's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-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


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julells's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Ich hatte immer ein bisschen Angst vor meinem ersten Stephen King Buch und die was auch vollkommen berechtigt.

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booking_along's review against another edition

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

3.5

this reread ended in a bit of a surprise for me: i didn’t dislike this book this time around. 

when i first read this book some years ago, i got hung up on specific moments and situations in the that i think could have been done better -especially the bullying situation about the topic of becoming your  period and getting made fun of for that and that becoming the catalyst for it all. 

i still wish King could have picked something different as the big moment that it can all be pointed back at. 

but at the same time King did a pretty good job in rounding the entire situation out and building it around blood and the release of it. 


this time reading carrie, i just felt horrible for carrie and how horrendously hard her life would have been and how instead of trying to help or getting a child out of the clutches of a horrendous mother that clearly isn’t fit to be rising a child everyone overlook those things and instead just went right on teasing carrie as soon as they could. 

and in many ways sadly those things and reactions are too realistic. 

as i said i still wish King would have chosen a different starting point - i don’t know why but having a man write about a teenage girls body and her breasts and her sensitive reactions of her body in her period… that still gives me a bit of an icky feeling (King is not the only author i have that with, i have that with all (but especially male) authors that sexualize teenage (girl) bodies and describe how they look and how they feel) 

but as i also already mentioned i understand and see how it all rounds up and together, he could have done it differently and still got the same results BUT overall it’s not the worst (he still could have left out the scene werte carrie touches her breast and pinches her nipples for no reason at all?)


i do think that this book -even 50 years later- still packs an incredible punch and showing the consequences of bullying. sure in an unlikely and unrealistic way with the supernatural powers and all that but still, the bullying was the thing that pushed it all into horror. 

the constant harassment and battering, the mistreatment and abuse from everyone in carries life was sadly something realistic and i wish especially those moments would have become as unrealistic as the powers. 


overall the writing was good, the characters horrible but well writing and the story as a whole well done. 
small changes could have made it even better but those moments also added some shock or normality to the story overall.

also the ending was very well done and especially with king that’s something that can’t be taken for granted. 

i think it’s still a very readable and relevant sadly even relatable story for some people. 


and interestingly this book went from one of my least favorite king books to one of the good to better ones of him. 

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pitchafitz's review against another edition

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dark tense 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

4.5


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