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Carrie

3.8 of 5 stars 3.80 · rating details · 147,561 ratings · 2,639 reviews

A modern classic, Carrie introduced a distinctive new voice in American fiction -- Stephen King. The story of misunderstood high school girl Carrie White, her extraordinary telekinetic powers, and her violent rampage of revenge, remains one of the most barrier-breaking and shocking novels of all time.

Make a date with terror and live the nightmare that is...Carrie

Paperback, 189 pages

Published February 1977 by New English Library (first published April 5th 1974)

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Apr 18, 2013 Seak (Bryce L.) rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, 2013

To begin, I want to tell a quick story about my introduction to Stephen King. I came really late to the party when it comes to the King. I'll not bore you with the same ol' story about my first read, but to make a long story short, I read The Stand and was not a fan right away...to say the least. For some reason, and after numerous recommendations, I started The Dark Tower series and I wasn't even that impressed with the first book, The Gunslinger. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't nearly what eve...more

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Nov 16, 2007 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: telekinetic would-be ugly duckling prom queens with a heavy flow

Shelves: crazy-ladies, chicklits, groups-of-people

I want to start a shelf of "books-that-traumatized-me-as-a-child-with-stories-of-girls-who-just-could-not-stop-gushing-blood-Down-There," but I can't think of any others besides this and Bell Jar. I know in Are You There God, It's Me Margaret they just couldn't stop TALKING about it, but I think that was different, more just perplexing and annoying than actually traumatic.

Any suggestions?

Um, BTW, this book is AMAZING. I should give it more than three stars. There! Done. Four! This is one of thos...more I want to start a shelf of "books-that-traumatized-me-as-a-child-with-stories-of-girls-who-just-could-not-stop-gushing-blood-Down-There," but I can't think of any others besides this and Bell Jar. I know in Are You There God, It's Me Margaret they just couldn't stop TALKING about it, but I think that was different, more just perplexing and annoying than actually traumatic.

Any suggestions?

Um, BTW, this book is AMAZING. I should give it more than three stars. There! Done. Four! This is one of those books where you're just like, DUDE, how did you even come UP with these THOUGHTS? I mean, I think we take it all for granted now but honestly, this book is amazing. I mean, there's just so MUCH, from the scary religious fanatic mom to the pig's blood to the downed telephone wires to the..... I haven't read this in a hundred years, but I remember many scenes in it so vividly, and not just because of the movie (which is, of course, also great).

I really think this took a lot of guts to write. I mean, the girls' locker room scene, come ON, I mean, who did he think he WAS when he WROTE that? I think he was still drinking then. He must have been. How much guts would that take, to be like, "I'm this guy and I'm going to write this completely balls-out preposterous scene of what I imagine it could be like inside a high school girls' locker room, even though I obviously have NO IDEA. Oh, yeah, and this unpopular naked teenage girl's going to be in there getting her period for the first time, and it's going to be INSANE. Insanely bloody, that's what it's gonna be! Yeah, that's right, blood EVERYWHERE. It's a horror novel! I'm gonna start out with gore! What could possibly be more disgusting and disturbing than bleeding out of one's most private orifice? Well, I'm sure I have no idea what that's like, really can't imagine it, the whole idea sounds totally crazy to me, that such a gross thing would happen to anyone... but being inside a girls' locker room, wow, well that really sounds intense too. Though come to think of it, I have no idea what THAT would realistically be like either! So yeah, but I'm gonna write this scene anyway, gushing blood and mean naked high school girls and it's going to be COMPETELY @#*%ing CRAZY." And he did. And it was.

But it WORKED. This novel was insane and fearless and obviously written by someone who had this story in him that needed to gush out like Carrie's menstrual blood and crazy telekinetic angst. This is one of the books I think of when I get depressed about the idea of workshopped writing and the internal observing critic and all the rest of that limiting quality-control type stuff. Sometimes people need to tell the nasally fact-checkers in their fevered brains to sit down and shut up, and drown out the voices of reason and temperance so they can let the wild stuff come out, and when they do, that's when they write Carrie.

Is this the Classic of Western Literature? No, not by most people's standards, and definitely not by mine. But it is a damn good story, and I'm glad he told it!(less)

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Feb 28, 2013 Lee rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Almost quit on page 50 when the mother's backstory kicked in, too many POVs, too many textures, cartoonishly cliched characterization, good-for-nothing dialogue (good for reinforcing cliched characterization and doesn't really do much to advance the plot -- a sin in lit), generally wasn't getting the juice I get from good reading, but I decided to read it like a world-famous mid-'70s thriller, like Dario Argento in print, not a New Directions pearl - that is, I decided not to worry about the lan...more Almost quit on page 50 when the mother's backstory kicked in, too many POVs, too many textures, cartoonishly cliched characterization, good-for-nothing dialogue (good for reinforcing cliched characterization and doesn't really do much to advance the plot -- a sin in lit), generally wasn't getting the juice I get from good reading, but I decided to read it like a world-famous mid-'70s thriller, like Dario Argento in print, not a New Directions pearl - that is, I decided not to worry about the language or if I caught the plot points or differentiated among the cartoonishly cliched characters. Turns out, reducing the reading stringency set me free to sense and appreciate the atmosphere. Once I thought of it like a massive thunderstorm gaining strength, knowing there'd be a huge bloody downpour (I saw some of the movie in the late '80s maybe), I couldn't put it down. Population explosion and multiple POVs, including parenthetical instances of deep POV (stream o' consciousness and/or shreds of telepathy) -- plus post-Prom police reports, academic studies, first-person accounts, and Q&A interviews with survivors, etc -- created a sense of readerly disorientation/unsettledness so when the critical moment/climax hit from Carrie's perspective, replete with real nice 'n' evil Lovecraftian flourishes (H.P. was namechecked about as often as Macbeth), it really leapt off the ~40-year-old trade paperback's yellowed pages -- plus I serendipitously read this section aloud to wife upon request that I read some aloud as she fed our innocent little neonate. Loved loved LOVED the scene where Carrie is nervous before the prom, waiting for her date, spinning objects through the air around her room. Such a perfect image for that sort of anticipatory anxiety. Loved the bits about ancestors who used their telekinetic powers to get a fireplace going or rock a chair with no one in it -- each sort of believable in an Old World black magic way (the phrase "the White bitch" stopped me each time, although I realized it referred to Carrie's surname). Loved the inevitable mother/daughter battle royale conflict. Loved that one of the bully girls had been accepted to my undergraduate alma mater thanks to a pulled string by her father. Otherwise, multiple POVs and textures and techniques made things a little murky for me. The language often loses its shit adverbially ("hangs penduously"), the dialogue is skimmable, the thematic significance is spelled out instead of suggested, and my first edition paperback (both covers fell off as I read it) included multiple typos, but the totally ineluctable charge toward release of accumulated menancing atmosphere was worth it. Will work my way through the man's major works over the next thirty years (assuming Philly's menacing atmosphere doesn't consume me first). Glad to have read this as part of a little not-so-serious study of the literature of horror I've apparently started in on, thanks to listening to 2666 this winter and then reading the Lovecraft essay (Supernatural Horror in Literature) the weekend after the birth of our daughter (not sure why one led to the other). Here's to discovering new territory in aisles I've never gone down.(less)

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Jun 04, 2013 Anushka rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adapted-into-a-movie-or-tv-show, authors-i-love, bitchin, favorites, holy-cow-that-was-awesome, i-cried, me-likey, suspense-mystery-horror, reviewed, too-much-feels, mindfuck

This was Stephen King's first published work and I hadn't even read it till now?! Some fan I am!
I hope Its never too late applies for me here and all will be forgiven.

THIS BOOK.
WOW.
Just WOW.
Amazing.
W-O-W.

I would have given this book 5-Stars but as I have already read a few books by Stephen King, I am well aware that he is capable of writing better stuff. Hence 1 Star less.

The opening scene. My goodness! Since that scene itself I developed a deep sympathy towards the main character. Poor Carrie...more

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Oct 03, 2012 Eleanor rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book isn't a "classic" in the true sense of the word, even though I think it tried to be with it's fragmented, epistolary and internal monologue style. In fact, almost forty years after it's publication, what may have been cutting edge at the time comes across a little dated and hokey in parts.

Which is precisely part of it's appeal for me. Although no literary juggernaut, it can be recognised as a modern/cult classic for it's quaint, pulpy nostalgic feel (back in a time when telekinesis, sp...more

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Nov 29, 2012 Eyehavenofilter rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I just re-read this, because I noticed that thre is a new version of the movie and Im horrified, so I decided to re-review!
Redeux 2012
Stephen Kings Recipe for Disaster
ingredients:
1 telekenetically talented teeanged outcast
1 sexually repressed , religious fanatic, over bearing, abusive mother
3 to 4 teenaged sex obsessed highschool girl bullies
1 part time friend
mix carefully and wait for first signs of puberty during addition of a sprinkling of water.
beat furiously until tears and hysteria bring o...more

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May 11, 2012 Jane Stewart rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: soft-horror, 5-star-other

I liked it because it was different. It made me feel good in a youthful way.

STORY BRIEF:
Carrie was abused by her religiously fanatic mother and reviled and bullied by her classmates. When she reaches puberty she gains a telekinetic ability. She can move things with her mind.

REVIEWER’S OPINION:
Others have called this “haunting sheer terror” and “gory and horrifying.” I feared the horror would keep me awake at night. But it did not. Actually it put me in a good mood.

I saw the movie years ago and I...more

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May 05, 2013 Scarlet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: stephen-king

Don’t let the brevity of this book fool you. Carrie may be one of King’s less thick books but right from the scandalous opening scene to the very last page, it’s a relentlessly harrowing read.

King pieces together Carrie's story through a series of reports and articles concerning a telekinetic catastrophe in Maine. I knew how terrible the end would be before it even happened, so reading the book was an excruciating experience - the dread just kept building page after page, I could see what everyt...more

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Oct 20, 2012 Belle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-vs-movie, oh-the-horror

Carrie is an iconic horror story that just about everybody knows the ending to. I think even before I saw the movie as a teenager, I knew what happened - that image of a blood-drenched Sissy Spacek framed against a wall of fire is so pervasive in pop culture it's hard to escape that knowledge. So it's to Stephen King's credit that, even for a reader armed with an awareness of exactly what's going to go down, Carrie remains a compelling, engaging and suspenseful page-turner.

A large part of this,...more Carrie is an iconic horror story that just about everybody knows the ending to. I think even before I saw the movie as a teenager, I knew what happened - that image of a blood-drenched Sissy Spacek framed against a wall of fire is so pervasive in pop culture it's hard to escape that knowledge. So it's to Stephen King's credit that, even for a reader armed with an awareness of exactly what's going to go down, Carrie remains a compelling, engaging and suspenseful page-turner.

A large part of this, I think, is due to the figure of Carrie herself. Although she is responsible (spoiler warning if you've been living under a rock) for the death of hundreds of people, she is no monster. She's not even a Frankenstein's monster - sympathetic, but a monster nonetheless. She's actually incredibly human; a real (albeit strangely gifted) person who has been pushed and pulled and ground down and hurt for her entire life. Abused at home and abused at school, Carrie has no escape, until Sue and Tommy offer her a lifeline. It's no wonder then that when that lifeline appears to her to actually be a trap, she snaps. It's a very human reaction. We've all known someone like Carrie - or felt like her at some point. Without, you know, the whole telekinesis thing.

Indeed, for me, one of the most horrific parts of the book was at the very beginning, in the infamous shower scene. Carrie is the victim here, and the screaming, screeching girls around her are terrifying - but not because they are monsters. They are human too, having a very visceral reaction to Carrie's menarche. While sympathising with Carrie, the reader - like the teacher in the scene - is also disturbed by her. We recognise that the girls are being horrible, but again, like the teacher, we can understand their reaction. And that is what makes it so frightening - it reflects the monsters that are within us all, providing a critique of our discomfort with female sexuality as a society.

It's significant that it's Carrie's period that unlocks her telekinectic abilities. It gives her power and the ability to finally stand up for herself. King is careful to maintain sympathy with Carrie through to the very end. Even in the midst of her rampage, we have Sue, who has more right than anyone to be horrified by Carrie, reminding us that she was just a girl - an innocent girl, even, who was mistreated by the whole community in some way or another. There is a definite sense that prom night is a fateful evening - that the people of the town signed their own death warrants by their nasty actions. Even while you recoil in horror at the gruesome events on the page, there's an undercurrent of vindication. After a lifetime of being forgotten at best and attacked at worst, Carrie's name is literally on everyone's minds. She will no longer be ignored. It's the ultimate revenge against a society that seeks to control and repress female power.

Spoilery Talking Points
(view spoiler)

This review also appears on my blog.

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Jul 23, 2012 Marvin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

This is a tough one to rate. I read it shortly after it came out. I saw it on the "just arrived" shelf at the library and never heard of the author before. My initial reaction after reading it was "Wow! Not half bad" but it didn't register enough for me to see if he wrote anything else. At this point, he hadn't. Then maybe a year late, same "just arrived" shelf. Salem's Lot. "Ummm" I thought. "Same writer as Carrie. Let's give it a try". This time, my mind was blown and I became a diehard Stephe...more

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Dec 26, 2010 Leslie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, ooh-fantastical, providence-public-library, re-read, read-in-2010

This is the perfect airport book--enthralling but familiar and not terribly deep.

In at least 4 instances in Carrie, an authority figure slaps someone in hysterics and behold! The nut-in-question reconnects with sanity! Every time it happens, it is presented as logical, sane and humanitarian. This is something I've only ever seen in old movies (example: just yesterday I watched as John Wayne slapped an unhinged child in Red River), but I imagine in real life you have to be pretty bold to try this...more

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Oct 14, 2011 ~Geektastic~ rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: King fans, people who hated high school

Shelves: owned, horror-suspense, favorites, reviewed, great-movie

It’s that time of year again, the sometimes-lovely month of October, and it’s time for my annual visit to Uncle Stevie (this is not a euphemism for anything). Right now, I am just immersing myself in Needful Things, one of his doorstop mid-nineties masterpieces. But, with all the anti-bullying bru-ha-ha going on in the news right now, it feels appropriate to go back and talk about the book that cemented my annual tradition.

I first read Carrie as a freshman in high school, and afterward I went on...more It’s that time of year again, the sometimes-lovely month of October, and it’s time for my annual visit to Uncle Stevie (this is not a euphemism for anything). Right now, I am just immersing myself in Needful Things, one of his doorstop mid-nineties masterpieces. But, with all the anti-bullying bru-ha-ha going on in the news right now, it feels appropriate to go back and talk about the book that cemented my annual tradition.

I first read Carrie as a freshman in high school, and afterward I went on a Stephen King bender; that’s how much I loved it. High school really is the perfect time to encounter this book for the first time. Carrie takes the average high school experience of misery and loneliness and ups the ante to near apocalyptic levels; after reading this, my high school experience felt like a warm and fuzzy trip to Disneyland.

Carrie White is a sad, lonely girl with a terrible home life and no one to turn to. Her mother is a religious fanatic and certifiable lunatic. The kids and teachers at school, with a very few exceptions, range from monstrously cruel to blindly apathetic. The events of the opening scene alone would scar most people for life, and Carrie is even less prepared than most to face the horror of adolescence.

King takes an excellent tactic with this book--which was his first published--and weaves the supernatural/unnamed elements of horror with the even more disturbing psychological horrors of being a teenager. Carrie has a special gift ((view spoiler)), and her abilities are integral to her development, and intensely horrifying once you see where the narrative is taking her. King tells the story with a highly effective combination of methods, interspersing the traditional storytelling with fictional primary source documents recording the “phenomenon” of Carrie White and the ensuing tragedy (this is a horror book, so I don’t consider this warning a spoiler). Carrie’s tale becomes the beginning of a much larger, untold story that affects all of society both scientifically and psychologically. Well, maybe not entirely untold, if you’ve read Firestarter.

As readers, we know from the very beginning that Carrie’s story will not end well; the tale is mostly flashbacks and analysis of events with heavy foreshadowing of calamity. However, this knowledge doesn’t keep us from dreading the outcome and hoping that we might be mistaken. Carrie is so obviously the underdog, and so pitiably lovable, that it is just as heartbreaking as it is frightening to watch the end events unfold.

As a horror novel, or just as a novel in general, Carrie is a great read, both powerful and enjoyable. A substantial amount of story is packed into a scant 200+ pages, and the tension builds to a powerful crescendo. Though I don’t think the book was ever intended as an anti-bullying polemic, I do think those who suffer at the hands of bullies could glean some amount of (slightly disturbing) comfort from this book. However, it is the bullies that should be reading it; I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book that more clearly delineates the disastrous consequences of persecuting others. You can make all the after-school specials you want, but if you really want to teach someone not to be a bully, give them a copy of this book.

(In some ways, I think Carrie is a better version of a story King told under the name Richard Bachman, Rage, in which a deranged teenager holds his class hostage at gunpoint. Carrie covers similar themes, with much more power and originality.)
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Feb 14, 2009 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: i_saw_the_movie, horror, stephen-king, insane_in_the_membrane

I think part of what makes this book so amazing is that even though it is a horror book - it stems from something very basic and very real to so many people. The need to be loved. The need for acceptance. The need to be nurtured by a parent. Sadly - as is so often the case in real life as well - these things are held out of reach for Carrie. Her mother is crazy. The kids at school are HORRIBLE. She has no friends - no life. She is isolated and miserable. She is an outsider who can see that peopl...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Haralambi Markov rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror-dark

A lot of water has run since the review I have posted way back in 2008 and I find it hilarious how my tastes have changed or at least how the quality of the books I have read before and after "Carrie" can influence my perception. "Carrie" is a very vibrant book, excellently written and juicy with all that snake's nest of pain and heartache associated with a tough youth.

------

A lot of water has run since the 70s and the release of “Carrie”, a lot of novels appeared on the market and for that mat...more A lot of water has run since the review I have posted way back in 2008 and I find it hilarious how my tastes have changed or at least how the quality of the books I have read before and after "Carrie" can influence my perception. "Carrie" is a very vibrant book, excellently written and juicy with all that snake's nest of pain and heartache associated with a tough youth.

------

A lot of water has run since the 70s and the release of “Carrie”, a lot of novels appeared on the market and for that matter Stephen King didn’t do badly at all, conquering the literary scene and all. I am definitely sure that just about anyone has read reviews about the book or the book itself, the adults anyways, but to think of the teens these days, who are not so acquainted with the classics like I was awhile back and still am, I am posting one anyways.

After reading “On Writing” by Stephen King, where he mentioned so many times Carrie and what the book was actually about I knew I had to read. I mean, which violence-anime-comic-book-crazed teen wouldn’t die to read a novel about a repressed high school outcast becoming a murderous monster relying only on the power of the mind. I am not so sure, if “Carrie” is the initial spark about the craze over telekinesis, but I definitely bet on it. I have not read many books having a take on this particular super power and I found it most satisfying.

First of all I have compliment Mr. King on the ingenious idea to construct the novel as a scrap book of notes, bulletins, excerpts from fictional books, interrogations and actual story telling. This is some great strategy to avoid the additional information like character background, events and setting, which would be usually introduced via dialog, story arcs and all the rest. So clap, clap, clap to all that.

So the story is actually very simple. We have Carrie White, who has the bad luck to be born into a family of zealous fanatics; her mother being presented as a tyrant with predisposition of constant yelling and a lot of her screws loose. The influence of her mother’s upbringing and the constant demeaning pranks, jokes and taunts from all her peers because of Carrie’s background, turn Carrie into an outcast. Thus while experiencing her first period in the gym shower (side not is that she doesn’t know menstruation is), all the girls make fun of her. This is the first time she manifests her telekinetic power by blowing out a light bulb. This event however sets the scene to the apocalyptic ending as Sue Snell decides to make her boyfriend Tommy Ross take Carrie to the senior prom in order to make amends with her own guilty conscience about taunting Carrie. Here come the main villains Chris Hargenson and her boyfriend Billy Nolan, who plan to make the prom night a living hell for Carrie. While she and Tommy Ross get crowned as Kind and Queen of the prom they dump a bucket of pigs blood on Carrie, which triggers the homicidal persona in her. Apocalypse is unavoidable.

Carrie is a very believably created character and the hell she goes through aka her life is built in incredible detail. Most interesting is how she seems to host this immense power and the maniac flame in her whole persona, which seems to go hand in hand I guess and then there come her meek, shy and frightened to death mousy personality. It’s a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide situation and all she needed was a trigger to cause annihilation.

The last pages of the novel put accent on the telekinesis and those were the pages I liked best for obvious reasons. First I enjoyed how Stephen King described it as flexing of the brain and then through regular training in minimal time, Carrie developed control and strength. She can also do multiple tasks at the same time and has latent telepathy. If I have to go in my analysis mode I would have to say that Carrie is a metaphor of a human being broken down to an emotional wreck with pain and chaos gathering like a storm. This turmoil is just expressed on the outside.

Of course the book had several areas that didn’t exactly work for me. Sue Snell is too much of a Samaritan to offer Carrie the night of her life and the perfect date. I know that this book was written back in the 70s, but teen girls back then had valued their prom night as much as girls do now. Her sudden decision is a bit illogical, no matter how guilty she feels. Then come Tommy Ross and his decision to play along without much though. I understand that he is a jock and suffers in the brain department, but it’s like saying to a person that instead of a sandwich he had to eat a cookie. The fact that Carrie was accepted so well during the prom night without the whole gossip droning around is also a bit suspicious. For me it was a bit surreal and mister King could have added some extra 5K into the mix to strengthen that. After that came the matter with all these adverbs that were quite obvious in the dialogue tags, but considering it was his first published book and way back in the 70s, who am I to criticize.

In conclusion I must say that this was a cool read. It reads fast, I personally finished it in four days and I read it on a Word file, since I couldn’t find a paper version, even on the used books stands. The situation with books in Bulgaria is rueful. (less)

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Sep 09, 2007 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was definitely one of the better quick-read horror books I've read. I read this from start to finish in one day on the beach and was surprised to feel like there actually was decent character development and insight. After seeing the movie MANY times, I was half expecting to skim through the book with a "been there-done that" attitude, simply looking for instances where the movie deviated from the book. But King's unique style of incorporating news clippings, interviews, excerpts from books...more

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Dec 04, 2012 Adrienne Proctor rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stephen King certainly knows how to make a grand finale.

A few things to keep in mind.
1. This is King at his earliest and best. This book is true to its genre- horror. It lives up to every expectation that comes with that.
2. Like I said, this is King. He will kill anyone and everyone. He likes to kill your favorite characters. Usually the more you like them, the more gruesome their deaths. But, he gets the bad ones, too. Oh they certainly get what's coming to them.
3. You may want to quit before...more

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Aug 07, 2010 jennbunny Byrkit rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: real-books-2012, horror

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 20, 2009 Edi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book when I was 15 -- which, in my opinion, is the best age for it.
The plot is, in fact, quite simple. Carrie White is telekinetic. She gets pushed over the edge, so she fights back.
But what's somewhat interesting (it's actually amazing if you're a teenager) is how this whole situation is gradually built.
You'll find different types of characters in her life -- the religiously insane (her mother), the stereotype "mean girls", the football jock that has a brain for a change, and plain,...more

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Dec 08, 2008 Chelsea rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

YES YES YES!!! Way to go Carrie!!! I'm not one of those psycotic people who will probably commit a gun crime someday, but I was bullied as a child and I like how the book shows the negative effects of making someone feel like they don't have the right to walk the earth. This is a wake-up call to america's youth. If you mess with fire, you get BURNED!!!

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Feb 09, 2009 Belinda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 08, 2013 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: king

I finished this quite some time ago and wrote a review, but I guess it did not save. Oh well, I will still try to write a little something. I watched the movie at the same time, and there were some major differences in the way Carrie was portrayed in the movie vs the book. Carrie in the book was not a cute naive young girl. She was sort of gross, and much less sympathetic. I suppose she was a little naive, but she was not afraid of her telekinetic abilities, as a matter of fact, she practiced th...more

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Jun 06, 2013 Scott Pilgrim rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: paranormal, classics, big-disappointments, horror

Seen at City of Books

I have been avoiding writing a review for Carrie for four days or so. It is really hard to write a review a book that you really wanted to enjoy and had really high expectations for. Carrie was one of those books that I wanted to read for a while now and so I had to finally pick it up from the library. To say Carrie was disappointing is merely an understatement.

Carrie is one of the most popular horror stories of all time and so most people have seen the 1970's film or hav...more Seen at City of Books

I have been avoiding writing a review for Carrie for four days or so. It is really hard to write a review a book that you really wanted to enjoy and had really high expectations for. Carrie was one of those books that I wanted to read for a while now and so I had to finally pick it up from the library. To say Carrie was disappointing is merely an understatement.

Carrie is one of the most popular horror stories of all time and so most people have seen the 1970's film or have read this classic novel. Anyway Carrie White is the daughter of a religious fanatic who discovers she has telekinetic powers and use her powers to get revenge on her classmates who turned her into the social pariah. Of course Carrie's tormenting leads to the notorious bloody Prom scene which is one of the most well known horror movie scenes ever.

I really liked the premise of Carrie but I feel like it wasn't executed well. I really didn't like how the perspective kept switching from Carrie to interviews and reports on the events of prom. It was kind of ridiculous to read the same event from different perspectives multiple times. I don't really need to hear about Carrie's stint at prom from the police, Carrie, and Susan. The fact that it kept switching perspectives really slowed down the pace of the story and didn't add anything essential to the plot at all. I would have much preferred if it was just told from Carrie's POV because it would have been more deep and emotional.

Carrie also lacks realistic elements to the point where the entire story is unbelievable. Carrie is a High School senior yet she doesn't even know what sex or menstruation is. What High School student doesn't know about reproduction? Isn't Health a required class in High School? I know that Carrie isn't exactly a normal teen but still I don't believe her lack of knowledge about "The Circle Of Life" for a second. Another thing is why doesn't care report her religious fanatical mother for being abusive? Her mother's extreme religious creed came to the point where it was extremely abusive and Carrie doesn't do anything to stop her. I really think the whole entire Prom could have been avoided if Carrie told someone about her abusive mom and her classmates who bullied her. Telling an authoritative figure could definitely have helped Carrie's situation yet she didn't. Another thing about Carrie that bothered me was that King didn't personify Carrie at all. Carrie didn't really have a personality at all because King made it seem like her telekinesis, and damaged self was all Carrie was. Carrie was not just her mental illness caused by her mother and classmates and she certainly wasn't just someone who could practice TK. We never really got to know who Carrie was as a person because King was too busy trying to make us emphasize with her remorseful story. Carrie just felt like a character who was as flat and one dimensional as a piece of cardboard even her dialogue was ridiculously unbelievable.

Despite the fact that the switching of perspective and believability of Carrie was questionable, I did enjoy Carrie. I certainly had sky high expectations for Stephen King's debuts and that really made me enjoy Carrie less than I could have. I really think that if Carrie wasn't so hyped, I wouldn't have been as disappointed and Carrie could have been 3 stars. Carrie was an interesting and entertaining read that I haven't stopped thinking about it even though I wasn't a huge fan of the book. Another thing that I noticed that I failed to mention earlier is that the novel feels extremely dated. I am not sure where I should see the movie or not considering how mixed I felt about the book. I know that this won't be my last Stephen King book because I have faith that I will enjoy his other books more.(less)

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Aug 28, 2011 Lena Hillbrand rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: King fans

Shelves: stephen-king, audiobooks

I'm not sure why I haven't read this book before now. In high school I read tons of Stephen King, but for some reason I skipped over this one. Maybe because it was thin and I liked the big thousand-plus page books he wrote. I was finally inspired to read this book because I saw the movie, liked it, and wanted to see if the book was better.

For me, it was a good read. Some of the parts got a little tedius, but overall, it was a good book. A little immature in the King realm, but that's to be expec...more

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Oct 07, 2010 Ashleigh Paige rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: the-great-shelf-of-awesome, all-time-favorites

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Also appears on The Screaming Nitpicker.

High school teen Carietta "Carrie" White grew up with an unbalanced religious fanatic for a mother and without either a father or friends she could rely on. Kept from doing things or buying clothes that the average teen would, the change in her life begins the day of her first menstrual period at age seventeen. The emotional trigger that is pulled that day unlocks her latent telekinetic powers and she starts to put them to use. These powers, combined with...more Also appears on The Screaming Nitpicker.

High school teen Carietta "Carrie" White grew up with an unbalanced religious fanatic for a mother and without either a father or friends she could rely on. Kept from doing things or buying clothes that the average teen would, the change in her life begins the day of her first menstrual period at age seventeen. The emotional trigger that is pulled that day unlocks her latent telekinetic powers and she starts to put them to use. These powers, combined with one girl named Sue's guilt over what she did to Carrie and her attempts to redeem herself, set the stage for one of the most terrifying and memorable fictional events in modern times: Prom Night, the Black Prom, Carrie's vengeful rampage through the town of Chamberlain.

The strange thing with this book is that you know exactly how it's going to end and what happens, both because Carrie is both an infamous book and movie and because the epistolary form of the novel gives away multiple times that people will die on Prom Night and even who will die. But it doesn't subtract from the suspense at all to be told what happens; I found that it excited me more because it told me what was ahead and made me want to read the accounts of those who were involved instead of third parties who weren't there.

All of the characters felt realistic and flawed to me: Carrie, the shy, abused, and bullied girl who becomes more and more unhinged until she finally breaks; Sue Snell, the girl who did something she regretted and went to great lengths to try and fix what she did in some what; Chris Hargensen, the bully who hurt Carrie for years and just started to get an inkling of a feeling that she was doing something wrong just a little too late; Billy Nolan, the complete monster (okay, so he wasn't as three-dimensional as others); and Margaret White, the severely-unhinged and religiously fanatical mother of Carrie. Everyone had life to them, even characters mentioned only once or twice.

After I was done with the book, I remember Chris's hesitation when it came time to pull the string and dump the pig's blood on Carrie. What if she had decided against it? Would the buckets have remained unpoured and Carrie would have had the best night of her life? After getting along with Freida and other, would Carrie have started to make friends? How would Tommy have dealt with loving both Sue and Carrie? I wanted to know about everything that could have happened, but didn't- it made me want to see an alternate ending. There's the possibility that Billy would have pulled the string after he got sick of Chris's hesitation, but there's also equal chance that he wouldn't have. Yet even if the bucket had remained untouched, there would still be Carrie's mother to think about, who had been planning the whole time to kill Carrie when she got back. Would that have been Carrie's trigger instead of the pig blood? We will never know.

This book gave me one of my favorite moments of all time, one that made me mentally go, "Oh snap!" It was when Chris Hargensen's lawyer dad John Hargensen and Principal Henry Grayle had a mental face-off. Chris was supposed to go to detention for throwing tampons and pads at Carrie and when she didn't, she was suspended for three days and lost her prom tickets. John comes in to try and get the prom rights back for her and a mental face-off the likes of which I have never seen before happens between the two men. While they argued legal mumbo-jumbo back and forth about the rights of the school to punish one of their students and how teachers can handle students, I was on the edge of my seat. Once I was finished with that scene, I went back and read it again just because it was so awesome! Mr. Grayle definitely won that battle, showing off Chris's ugly record like that, along with threatening to sue on Carrie's behalf.

One small point bothered me about the novel, but I'm willing to let it slide. This novel is told in epistolary form with excerpts from fake books and accounts from people who lived in Chamberlain then. Yet this book contains Carrie's point of view when it's never seen that she write in a journal or leaves behind records; Tommy's thoughts and feelings just before his death are in here too, along with Margaret White's. When these characters die without leaving behind any records, where would these bits come from? This is my first true epistolary, but I would think that the entire book would have to be made up of records of some sort, not just pieces of it. I'll give it a pass because it's my first epistolary (my issue might have to do with being an idealist and not knowing how they work) and because it's in third-person. We don't ask about who the narrator is in every third -person book, do we? Exactly.

How could I not give this book a five-star rating? It was suspenseful, terrifying, classic, and I couldn't stand to put it down! (It also helps that if I gave it even one ukulele, the fictional and ghostly spirit of Carrie would come and kill me, according to my wild daynightmares.) I highly recommend this book; after reading it, you will more than likely see why Stephen King has become so popular. If you will excuse me, I'm going to go find the movie on television.(less)

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Aug 16, 2011 Celine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: advisory-10th

Carrie
By Stephen King
253pp New York, NY
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group $7.99
ISBN: 0-671-03972-5

Do telekinetic powers really exist? What about telepathy? Well, it hasn’t been scientifically proven to exist, but in Carrie , it definitely does. Carrie is a high school girl with ESP, a religion- fanatic mother, and is often bullied by other girls in her school for being ugly and antisocial.

The story starts off with a humiliating incident in the girl’s locker room. Chris Hargensen leads a g...more Carrie
By Stephen King
253pp New York, NY
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group $7.99
ISBN: 0-671-03972-5

Do telekinetic powers really exist? What about telepathy? Well, it hasn’t been scientifically proven to exist, but in Carrie , it definitely does. Carrie is a high school girl with ESP, a religion- fanatic mother, and is often bullied by other girls in her school for being ugly and antisocial.

The story starts off with a humiliating incident in the girl’s locker room. Chris Hargensen leads a group of girls to throw tampons and pads at Carrie and fortunately, the gym teacher Miss Desjardin happened to pass by to listen to her explain the situation. Miss Desjardin gets the girls punished by detention but Chris, who didn’t show up at all, is punished harsher. She isn’t allowed to go to prom but she tries to get her way in.

Carrie soon discovers her telekinetic and some telepathic powers and starts practicing using them. Meanwhile, another popular girl Sue Snell regrets having participated in the locker incident and thought of a way to pay back to Carrie. She convinces her boyfriend Tommy Ross to go to prom with Carrie and though she was unsure of the reason, Carrie agreed to go with Tommy. At the prom, the first half was pretty well because Tommy was very friendly and nice, as were his friends. However, Chris, who is still mad at Carrie, plans revenge with her boyfriend Billy Nolan. When Carrie went onstage to receive her prom queen award, Billy Nolan poured a bucket of pig’s blood on her and the bucket knocked Tommy unconscious. Humiliated, Carrie leaves the prom, but as she stomps out, she realizes she could use her telekinetic powers to get her revenge. She ended up locking the doors and turning on the sprinklers although the electrical equipment was on. Watching the scene, she witnessed three die of electrocution but decides to kill everyone instead and caused a massive fire.

As she was walking home, Carrie stops the firemen from saving the people in the fire by disabling the hydrants. However, it turns out that everyone knows about her wrongdoings because she has a broadcast telepathy. At home, her mother is shocked and thought Carrie was possessed by a Satan. Her mother stabs Carrie with a knife, thinking it would save her, but instead, Carrie kills her mother.

Following this horrible nightmare, Carrie walks around and sees Chris and Billy. Billy tries to run her over and as self defense, she wrecks the car and kills them both. At this point, Sue Snell found Carrie in the parking lot and the two have a telepathic conversation. Carrie understands that Sue Snell never meant to embarrass her but she still thinks that the prom was all a trap she set up with Tommy and still bares hatred. At the end, Carrie prays for her mother and dies. Until then, is her terror put to a stop.

Carrie is a thrilling horror novel that is very interesting to read. The reader just never gets bored and it makes high school girls seem so frightening. There is an original storyline and I would recommend it for anyone to read. However, if you think you wotn be able to sleep after reading it, I suggest you not read it because the terror happens in the most common places such as a locker room.
(less)

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Nov 10, 2009 Craig Forrester rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library-books

This is the first fiction book of Stephen King's I have read, and I found myself surprised by a number of things. First, this was Stephen's first novel, and he took some really creative chances with both the narrative structure and the conventions of novel writing. He used various sources to tell the story of Carrie, which I thought was an end in and of itself, but Stephen used these rather as a means to his ultimate end--an effect too complex to explain here, you must simply read it for yoursel...more

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Jun 01, 2010 Joanna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: the-king-clan, fantasy-scifi-supernatural, have-read-more-than-once, my-home-library, my-friends-should-read-these, novel

Carrie is about a 16 year old misfit named Carrietta White and the destruction she wreaks on her town with her telekinetic powers.

It is told in the present tense with a third person omniscient narrative as well as the past tense done through newspaper clippings, book excerpts and court proceeding transcripts. As you begin the story you know something horrible has happened but it isn't until the last of the book that you realize just how devastating the outcome really was. It's a technique I can...more

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Jan 28, 2008 Samantha rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stephen King is one of the most popular authors of the latter half of the Twentieth Century, having most of his
works turned into either a feature film or a made-for-tv movie or miniseries. In my opinion, you would be hard-pressed to find someone in the modern world who does not know who Stephen King is.

When I was thirteen, It was turned into a miniseries and I loved it so much I purchased a copy of the book and jumped right in. Two hundred pages or so into it, I gave it up for lost. Few years la...more Stephen King is one of the most popular authors of the latter half of the Twentieth Century, having most of his
works turned into either a feature film or a made-for-tv movie or miniseries. In my opinion, you would be hard-pressed to find someone in the modern world who does not know who Stephen King is.

When I was thirteen, It was turned into a miniseries and I loved it so much I purchased a copy of the book and jumped right in. Two hundred pages or so into it, I gave it up for lost. Few years later, The Stand came on tv, and, once again, out I ran and bought the book. Again, less than two hundred pages read and I put it aside. Stephen King tends to go off in different directions with subplots and sub-subplots, to the point that (a) I don't know what's going on, and (b) I can't keep up with the train of thought. I watched the movies and got excited, got scared. But the books took so long to get to the main storyline, to the characters I met on tv, that my interest could not be held for very long.

Which brings us to Carrie! Loved the Brian De Palma movie, quote it all the time...and the Recorded Books version was only six discs long. Took just a few days to listen and now I can proudly say I have actually read and finished a Stephen King book.

The basic plot of the De Palma movie is there, with the bulk of dialogue, but the book is different, more detailed, more focused on
not just what happened -- what caused Carrietta White to do what she did to the whole town (not just the school, as the movie shows),-- but also the aftermath. The book jumps around (which would definitely annoy me in written form) from narrative to interviews to excerpts from reports and books on the T.K. event. The story is, in essence, straight forward, in that it is not subjective, but completely objective. But then there are the third person omniscient portions, for Carrie, for Sue, for Billy, for even Chris to tell us what she lived through, to know the ins and outs, to understand why everything happened. There's more to it than the others just picked on Carrie. More to than Margret White's extreme religious rigidity. More to it than what De Palma could show us. You have to read it to know it all.

The book wasn't bad. It wasn't spectacular; I'm not running out to read more Stephen King. I did, and do enjoy the movie more. But having read the book I feel like I've got more insight to the story, which is how it should be, right? No movie can show everything, and the book should be better than the movie. But I read it, I made it through, and I can say I finished a Stephen King book. Plus now I know there is at least one book by him that doesn't have a totally outrageous ending (see The Stand's 'hand of God detonating the nuclear missile; The Shining's Tony the Imaginary Friend being the son from the future...etc., etc.)...(less)

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Jan 09, 2012 Brayden Spears rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This novel is about a high-schooler named Carietta White. She is being tortured by her classmates and by her very religious mother. What the classmates don't know is that Carrie has the psychic power, telekinesis. Her mother tells her not to use it because it is "satan's power." And when a girl Sue Snell starts to feel bad for Carrie, she tells her boyfriend to go to prom with Carrie. But another girl named Chris Hargenson tells her boyfriend to kill a pig and keep the blood in a bucket, it all...more

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Apr 17, 2007 Jason rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

8 likes · like · see review

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About Stephen King

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family...more Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of the elderly couple. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen's grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.

Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and then Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.

He and Tabitha Spruce married in January of 1971. He met Tabitha in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University of Maine at Orono, where they both worked as students. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men's magazines.

Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many of these were later gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.

In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.(less)

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Quotes from Carrie

“High school isn't a very important place. When you're going you think it's a big deal, but when it's over nobody really thinks it was great unless they're beered up.” — 184 people liked it

“People don't get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don't stop pulling the wings of flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it.” — 58 people liked it

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