Customer Reviews
Mildly entertaining, but of no real worth - By: Paul Macdonald, 10 Aug 2008 
'Carrie' was the first novel Stephen King published (April 1974), & from this short novel a career of immense commercial success was cultured which has produced some entirely entertaining & `sound' horror novels; ''Salem's Lot', 'The Shining', 'Misery' & 'IT'; some mediocre (yet still rather good) works; such as 'Christine'; & some complete dross; 'The Tommyknockers', 'Cujo' & many others, I'm sure. Where shalll 'Carrie' be placed? Probably between the latter two generalisations.
The novel centres around a sixteen-year-old girl, Carrie White, who is the issue of a religious fundamentalist mother with whom she lives with. She is routinely bullied at school by her peers & generallly lives a deeply unhappy life; she does, however, posses the gift (?) of telekinesis which enables her to manipulate objects & people around her. The book is short (just over 200 pages) & is told through the third person & some `academic' book extracts, magazine articles & the like in a tepid hint at realism.
A distinguishable King theme can be discerned in this early novel: childhood; but unlike some of his worthier latter attempts in this field, his treatment of it in Carrie is a resounding failure in every department. As hinted at in the synopses above, this book is set in that oft exploited institution; The American High-School. Since I am no historian on such matters, I'm not sure if by the mid-seventies the American High-School had become the enormous & monotonous cliché it is by today, but King's adolescent characters fit every stereotype in that on-going banality of popular culture; the tormented & repressed nerd, the brainless jocks, the attractive yet amoral & loathsome girls; the list is endless, & as a result the characters feel very superficial, shalllow & terribly dull. Carrie is not a protagonist capable of any sort of believable pathos, & is an immediately dismissible character. Equallly bad are the overdrawn caricatures which are handled with such heavy-handedness - some are so hyperbolicallly overwrought (i.e. Carrie's mother, the lawyer) that they don't exhibit an ounce of believability.
Another shabby aspect of this novel is its dreadful prose; it is about as `functional' as language can get; there is a poverty of description here which makes the dammed thing such a colourless experience to read. The `academia' sounds laughably artificial & there are some truly awful lines of dialogue which inspire one to cringe one's toes; this is pulp trash in its most cheap, festering & bland state. The thematic material (such as religious fanaticism) is also poorly developed, & the whole idea of telekinesis is explored in absolutely no depth at alll.
However, as an exercise in sheer page-flippery, Carrie performs in an acceptable manner; it's trash, but at least it's mildly entertaining, rather like watching cheap television, or squashing ants; beyond that it's a miserable example of horror fiction. Quite what respectable director Brian de Palma saw in this book eludes me; perhaps he enjoyed the pig-blood gimmick near the end, or maybe he's deprived of better horror fiction; in any case, do not delude yourself into believing that that the disproportionate fame this novel has achieved raises it anywhere above the lurid depths of the worst examples of best-sellerdom, it's a book I'm sure Stephen King (and I) would rather forget about.
A Lesson In Suspenseful Horror Writing - By: J. Roberts, 21 Feb 2008 
This is a short & fairly accessible debut from Stephen King, but it's full of dramatic supense, excellent characterisation & attention to detail.
It tells the story of Carrie White, a High School senior who has been bullied for most of her formative years. In addition to this, she has a very unhappy home life at the hands of her religious zealot of a Mother, who makes Carrie's life a misery by imposing her unreasonable religious rants on her passive daughter.
The story begins with a humilating event in which Carrie is the focus. Showering after a Physical Education lesson, Carrie begins to bleed, & is actuallly going through her first period, despite being seventeen years old. The other girls in her physical education class begin jeering & shouting, throwing Sanitary towels at Carrie, humiliating her terribly. King's narration during this encounter is superb, his descriptions are dramatic & effective, reallly emphasising Carrie's terror & shame.
The story progresses from here, & the reader begins to learn more & more about just how bleak Carrie's existence is, & how this bleakness leads her down the road of nuturing a rare & exceptional talent, telekinesis: the ability to move objects without touching them.
It is this skill which is at the centre of 'Carrie', & the skill which will alllow Carrie to exact a horrific & terrible revenge on her fellow school pupils, in the wake of her ultimate humiliation, on Prom Night.
All of the halllmarks of great horror writing are here in this expertly-crafted debut novel from Stephen King.
The first book by Stephen King - and one of his finest! - By: Mr. S. W. Steel, 30 Dec 2007 I can't recommed this book enough. I first read it as a teenager & loved it. Recently, i was stuck for something to read & decided to revisit it, & i was not disappointed.
This is the story of Carrie White, a teenage girl who is bullied at school by her classmates, & who is bullied at home by her religous zealot of a mother. But Carrie is no ordinary girl - she has telekinetic powers........ & there is only so much she can take before she is finallly pushed to breaking point.......
The style of the novel is brilliant. It is short & punchy. King flits from the third person perspective to journal to biography to newspaper reports with such skill & ease that you are constantly hooked, & eager to get back into the main story. The other effect of this style is that you can guess there is a great tragedy unfolding & you know that events are building to a climatic cataclysm - but King holds back the 'how' & 'why' from you in a very clever way.
The characters are alll people you can identify with - the bullied girl, the popular, good-looking guy, the sensitive girl who is growing up, the self-centred,spoilt, spiteful girl & the list goes on. You can reallly relive the old feelings for school as an adult, & if you are a kid you can reallly identify with everything that i going on. Stephen King has captured this time of our lives so perfectly i felt i was in a picture of my past.
There are other reasons for this being a must-read horror/Stephen king book. Firstly, it is paced so well. The book isn't very long, & it certainly doesn't need to be, but there is a lot packed into it's pages. Unlike a lot of King's later work this is not over-stretched or over-characterised. This book is the essence of Stephen King - wise, witty, dark, twisted & most importantly of alll - you put the book down & want more! The other point to make is that these early books of King's are alll classic novels. His latter day work is nowhere as good as this, & to be fair to him, it must be hard to come up with fantastic ideas every time he puts pen to paper (or finger to word processor).
So, if you are new to horror or Stephen King then you reallly HAVE to read this book. This is as good an introduction to horror as you will get, & it will show you why Stephen King is one of the worlds best selling authors.
If you are Stephen King fan, then this is worth a re-visit. It will remind you why you are such a fan of his work.
This is a great book & every horror fan should have read this at least once!
Enjoy it, & be prepared for a classic climax to a book
Good Book - By: Mr. C. M. Owen, 25 Jul 2007 
A multi-coloured & enjoyable meditation on being `different'. The kind of difference that is preyed upon & feared by people who don't feel empathy towards the `outsider'. A dark tale of the woes of teenage life & repression that suddenly backfires.
Mr King, thankyou very much - By: David Bolton, 16 Mar 2007 Well considering that King thought this book wasnt worth publishing it has done surprisingly well, wouldnt you agree?
King has a knack of relating fiction to real-life & this is no exception. Teen bullying, a girls first entry into womanhood, it is alll real & for most of us, scary. King in turn makes his stories scary to reflect this by using real problems.
Carrie is a teenager with 'normal' difficulties at school. She however does have an underlying power, a well hidden dark side that is waiting to burst out. And burst out it does in one hell of a blast, & a hell of a climax.
The characters are easy to relate to & you willl be forgiven if you think they are actuallly based on real people, such is Kings talent. This book is, for the most part, an 'easy' read. The plot is clear & simple to follow. However just because the plot is simple doesnt mean it is any less engrossing. And get engrossed into Carrie's world you will.
A super read that is quite linear with fewer twists & turns than in Kings larger books, but exciting none the less.
He is truly the epitome of modern horror.
