A review by onyxisalive
Carrie by Stephen King

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

3.0

There are some things about this book I really loved. Stephen King does an amazing job showing how
badly Carrie was treated by both her mother and her peers, it makes you feel really sorry for her and definitely makes you root for her
- making the book much sadder. 

Sue Snell and Tommy
were both very likeable characters-
it was so nice to see Sue try and redeem herself and get Carrie to fit in and the others to accept her. It is so sad that these attempts were inevitably destroyed by Carrie’s peers that refused to let her grow effectively pushing her past the breaking point.


However there are a couple things in this book I didn’t like one much more serious than the other. 
The pacing of this book felt a little all over the place- it starts off relatively fast paced. However when reaching to the main event of prom night it ends up dominating the majority of the book and just feels to slow. With some scenes being retold multiple times from different perspectives- it was a nice idea but ended up making it feel a bit tedious to read.

One thing however that really left a bad taste in my mouth was the way violence against children (not Carrie) were glossed over and normalised.
The violence of the sheriff (slapping) two kids that were just traumatised by seeing all the people they care about die, was completely glossed over and not even discussed- which is really disgusting- the author made no attempt to communicate this was wrong just completely glossed over it. The second is discussed, but the conclusion to this is completely disgusting. When the female teacher is violent with Chris her dad threatens to sue (obviously), however the violence of the female teacher is excused by effectively saying that it was okay because Chris has done horrible things. It is true that Chris’s violence with Carrie is inexcusable and deserves punishment, but none of that is a fitting reason that hitting a child is ever okay.
The fact that it is treated like it is leaves a disgusting taste in my mouth and is completely inexcusable.
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