Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

Carrie, by Stephen King

23 reviews

sylvester749's review against another edition

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dark 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

4.0

 king's writing style was there from the get go (if you ignore the many other non-published non-novel writing he did before this), and its interesting to see how confident his prose is right away (including his less than savory ways of describing people). really liked the epistolary structure of it - the build up to the actual event was incredibly tense and well paced, especially since it lived up to the hype. overall very strong, very sad, and very engrossing! 

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books_inthecity's review against another edition

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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? Yes

4.5

I haven’t read really any horror novels before, so thus begins my goal of reading every stephen king book in release order. As it’s the first book, I was a little underwhelmed. I also didn’t expect to feel so bad for Carrie,
Spoiler honestly like getting me to think the town deserved it. Or at least, her bullies and mother did.
I want to watch the movies now, but I’m cutting King some slack since I know its the first one. The religious trauma is strong in this one. I also feel like there are some questionable phrases and themes in this book (although I know it takes place and was written in the 70s, its not much excuse). But I trek ever onward through King’s bibliography. 

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guivx5's review against another edition

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

5.0

Imagine starting your writer career with a book that defines a genre?

This is King's first book I've read (and I didn't know it was his first book written before picking it!), and it already sets some high standards for him, for I thought this was a brilliant experience. This is a 200-ish page that covers a multitude of topics with good balance: from bullying, abuse, childhood trauma to telekinetic powers and even scientific negligence (Like, God, how can you be THIS creative for a single story?). "Carrie" brings a lot to the table and does it well.

Perhaps what made me 5-star this one is how King uses horror and suspense, genres that are so saturated with cheap jumpscares and generic demonic creatures, to build a complex character such as Carrie. Her ultrareligious mother, her socially-reproved appearance, the lack of any happiness in her life... She's got you hooked even before you know about her powers. The uniqueness of her situation, and at the same time the ways we can relate to the problems, is truly something I haven't seen in a book character in a long time. She seems very real (Not only her, but the entire cast of characters here). Her powers are an amazing twist to the narrative as much as they are a metaphor for her anger. The rise of her telekinesis is, ultimately, her downfall. The amount of symbolism mixed to the tragedy here is astonishing.

I have a feeling that King could say he hangs out with aliens every saturday night for a poker game and I would just believe it. Intentional or not, "Carrie" pokes on uncomfortable subjects. It makes us wonder: how is one supposed to go through life facing so much hate without exploding? And if they do... can we really blame them?

On another note, I'll start training my cousin to see if she can lift objects.

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autisticmisabel's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

3.75


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eva_rebolledo's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective 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

2.75

Not necessarily bad, just gets boring at times. Reading Stephen King in English as a non-native speaker was.. an experience?

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nnnightime's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-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

2.5

Not a bad book but not amazing either, I was interested enough to keep reading but there was definitely some excitement or something lacking.

All the characters, even Carrie were not likeable, I found Carrie to be kind of pathetic and only slightly less as the book went on. I guess Sue was okay, even though she's basically the reason all the shit went down. But I suppose that's what King is getting at, that people are awful and even good people can be awful, on purpose or not. The ending was both interesting and not, with the reveal of another girl being noted with telekinetic powers, but I'm not sure if it was supposed to leave the reader scared or with a sense of "oh no it could happen again!" Because I kinda don't really care, sure a lot of the town were bystanders but they all knew or had a pretty good idea that Carrie was being abused by her mother and/or bullied at school and did nothing to help her. So I find it difficult to feel sorry for most of them.

I thought it was interesting that we knew what was going to happen the whole time, jumping from past to the present and the future it was pretty well done and easy to follow. But I'm not sure if knowing what would happen took some of the mystery and excitement away.

I don't think I'll ever read it again and the only reason I'd recommend it to someone would be if they wanted to see how well King rights awful people, and because it's short. I'm genuinely interested I why some people rate this book 5 stars, other than the kind of person who just rates everything 4 or 5 stars, I can't really understand anyone finishing the book with any other response other than being mildly happy that you'd completed a book and everything ended the way the book told you it would at the beginning.

Ugh I sound super harsh, it wasn't a terrible book, I probably wouldn't have finished it if it was, but it just wasn't all that interesting either.

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grave_liminal's review against another edition

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dark medium-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

2.0

The objectification of women and minors, as well as the glorification of sexual assault, makes this book extremely hard to read. It also opens a very large discussion about fatphobia in literature.

If you removed every single female description and sex scene from this book, it would’ve been a solid 4 stars. The repetition of the “breast” descriptions were so frequent that it seemed like a joke, a book written by a 12 year old boy. Disappointed that this was my first experience reading a King novel, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Would never reread it, and would barely recommend it other than the purpose of being able to say you’ve read a horror classic. 

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planetshelf's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective 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

4.0

This writing layout is strange and dense, and I can't decide whether I like it.

I’m always upset when I think about Carrie. Her experience on this planet was so fucked.

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maria_vkl's review against another edition

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dark emotional 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

3.25


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andylpzgal's review against another edition

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

5.0


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