Carrie
Stephen King
Rating: 3.5/5
I have a confession to make: this is the first Stephen King novel I’ve read. I’m not sure why it’s taken me this long to pick one up, but it only seemed fitting that my first Stephen King novel should be his debut novel.
I must preface by saying I haven’t seen the movie, so I went into the book with very little prior knowledge of what Carrie was actually about.
So, the verdict? A good debut novel, but not a fantastic one.
The format of Carrie was not at all what I expected. The narrative switched between the investigation into the Carrie White affair after the fact and then flashed back to Carrie’s story told through multiple characters.
Carrie was tiny—just over 200 pages—and I believe that contributed to my not-so-impressed attitude. It should have been at least 300 pages to flesh out the creepiness.
Since Stephen King is such a prominent author, everybody knows he’s the master of horror. But I wasn’t scared (and it’s not that hard to scare me). It was creepy and messed up for sure, but with King’s reputation, I was expecting not to be able to sleep last night. I got up rather well rested this morning and required only one cup of coffee to function.
While reading, I got the feeling that Carrie is just a fraction of what King is capable of creating so I’m definitely going to jump into a few of his later novels. I can see there is a great author hiding in those words so I’m truly excited to find the book of his that converts me into a super fan!
You can pick your own copy of Carrie (Amazon US / Amazon CA / Indigo / Book Depository).