Carrie: 200 Word Reviews #13

Carrie is a book so fantastic it makes you forget Stephen King is a creep who I suspect should be hunted for sport (joke). I hate that he is so intentionally icky and an undeniably incredible writer.

Carrie is a bullied teenage girl who gets her first period in the school shower and things she’s bleeding to death. All the girls jeer and throw pads at her; one more log of trauma on the pyre of misery that is her life. She goes home to the burning judgement of her zealot Momma, but finds something has changed in her. Puberty has awaken an ember inside: the power of telekinesis, growing and strengthening in the wind of her torment, with which she can finally protect herself.

Stephen King writes Carrie as a collage of narrative sections, book excerpts, news reports, etc. to construct a compelling narrative of slowly revealed horror; the distressing kind, not scary. His writing is visceral, placing the reader into the touch and smell and stink of what goes on, which is simultaneously gross and engrossing.

I recommend Carrie for anyone who enjoys the sickly feeling of reading something disgusting, fascinating and distressing, all at the same time.