50 Books Challenge 2012 - # 45: Carrie by Stephen King

Title: Carrie
Author: Stephen King
Story: Carrie White may have been unfashionable and unpopular, but she had a gift. Carrie could make things move by concentrating on them. A candle would fall. A door would lock. This was her power and her sin. Then, an act of kindness, as spontaneous as the vicious taunts of her classmates, offered Carrie a chance to be a normal and go to her senior prom. But another act, of ferocious cruelty, turned her gift into a weapon of horror and destruction that her classmates would never forget.
Start: october 16th 2012
End: october 22nd 2012
Comment: "Carrie" was Stephen King's fourth book, but the first one he'd published. Quoting King himself: "Because of Carrie, I could finally afford a real home". And what a fantastic debut novel this is. The book starts with a horrible act of teenage terrorisation. Carrie White got her first period and doesn't know what's happening to her. The girls in the lockerroom, lead by Chris Hargensen, start laughing at her and throwing tampons at her. We soon learn that Carrie is a loner, an outsider and an easy target for mean schoolgirls like Chris. The reason that Carrie didn't know about menstruation is her mother. Margaret White is a Bible thumping nut, who sees a sin in everything. Boys in general, having breasts or hanging your underwear to dry in the yard. The mothers character is very well written and even a bigger nitjob than Mrs. Carmody from "The Mist". Carrie can't help it that she is the way she is. You feel sorry for her. Chris Hargensen is this typical populair high school girl everyone wants to be, but also secretly hate. One of her friends, Sue Snell, is the only one that also feels sorry for Carrie, although she did participate in the incident that happened in the lockerroom. Tommy Ross, Sue's boyfriend, looks at Carrie differently when he gets to know her. When he takes her to the school dance and their are crownd prom king and prom queen, Chris and her boyfriend Billy have something in store for her. From there on the terror really starts, but this time it's coming from Carrie. "Carrie" is, like many other Stephen King books, really hard to put down. Once your in the story, it's hard to let go.
Rating: 5/ 5