Stephen King's Carrie (Book 1974)

This was a book that I've had on my list for a while. And since I'm always chipping away at the Stephen King books I still need to get through, I figured it only fit that I finally bump Carrie to the top of my list.

This book surprised me by it's size. For those of you who don't know, Carrie is a small book. It looks more like a short story, especially since most of King's books are gigantic. Not as thin as say Cycle Of The Werewolf (my favorite short story by King) but t's still a slim book.

Instantly what I liked about this book was how it was a past-telling book. It starts off with everything that happens at prom and all already having happened. And while you're reading about Carrie, the book breaks off into segments from magazines and books as well as interview segments all depicting incidents that occurred that night and how they're lives have changed. And there's segments about the condition Carrie has.

Carrie however, was depicted as looking totally different from movie Carrie. Movie Carrie is slim, skin and bones and long blonde hair. In the book Carrie is chubby, has bad acne and has red hair. So that was an instant notice for me because I've seen the movie dozens of times so Sissy Spacek was the face of that character to me.

The book starts off with Carrie being picked on in the locker room for getting her first minstrel cycle and due to her mom being a religious fanatic Carrie was never told what a period was. So the movie was true to the opening scene in the book.

Carrie's relationship with her mom is pretty much the same, only a little crazier and a little more harsh. Carrie's mom is a friggin' whack job. The conditions in which Carrie was forced to live her life were cruel and unfair for any child. There's no wonder she was 'the weird kid' at school.

Everything pretty much goes down the same with the bully's in Carrie's gym class being punished for picking on her and Chris, the lead and main Bully instantly wanting revenge when she loses her opportunity to go to prom.

Carrie gets hooked up with Tommy, the cutest boy in school and they go to prom together. The bucket scene was the same but since it was a book it had great detail and made for a better visual in your head than on screen. The humiliation at this moment for Carrie is horrible, for once in her miserable life she got to be the center of attention only to have blood dumped on her.

I like the way it goes down in the book more than the movie because in the book she actually leaves prom hysterical. And then she kinda realizes that they should all be punished for proving her mom right that they'd all laugh at her and never accept her. Carrie actually looks the doors from the outside and is outside of prom looking in as shes murdering people with her mind causing all sorts of devastation. The visual of her standing outside the doors looking in covered in blood and murdering people. Great story telling and I liked that more than her being in the prom while doing it. However, I can see how being inside would make a better scene visually.

I thought the book over all was great. Another King classic.

THIS BOOK GETS 3 REAPERS OUT OF 4