Carrie: Review: Carrie at 40

First off, big thanks to fellow book blogger Mr Matthew Craig for getting me on board with his Carrie at 40 celebrations (#Carrieat40). His website is www.readerdad.co.uk and he can be found on twitter as @MattGCraig. I've also contributed to his Stephen King celebrations with a guest blog on my reading/viewing experiences of SK and that can be found here!

As part of the celebrations I decided to join Mr C and read Carrie, the book we are all here to celebrate as it turns 40 tomorrow! As tomorrow I am buggering off for work I'm publishing my review for you lovely lot today so here it goes!

I'd heard a lot about Carrie, how there is horror, how a girl looses control and destroys everything with the power of her mind. I've also seen trailers for the various film adaptations, however, when I actually read the book, I wasn't half as terrified as I expected. Yes, it was creepy but it isn't the massive horror fest I was led to believe it is...and tbh, I was pretty pleased about that!

I mainly felt a great sadness for Carrie and for those around her. She had lead a pretty horrible life, her mother, a complete mental case, had bullied her, people at school had bullied her and she'd never really fitted in or even been wanted. No wonder everything got too much for her and she snapped.

When it comes to the book's construction, I was impressed. It was great to have snippets of memoirs, reports and books about the incidents as well as the SK narrative of the real time story. The retrospective recollections, interviews and reports gave the book more depth and led you down a path of 'yes this actually happened.' I wasn't expecting these bits, I was merely expecting a narrative tale so was delighted to come across them.

With regards to characters, they were wide and varied. Carrie was heart wrenchingly wronged and confused and upset and angry. Her mother was total bitch and there was a clear line of baddie and goodie, love and hate between and for the others. I did however develop a bit of a crush on the PE teacher, she was a babe!

I am delighted I've read this, it shows that SK had talent from the very beginning and makes me very jealous that someone so young can create such works of wonder!

Happy Reading

Book Geek
:-)