Carrie By:Donesha Lee

Carrie

By:Donesha Lee

Book Review

Goose bump chilling,spine crawling,and hair raising books have been produced by plenty of world-known authors.Stephen Edwin King, an American author of Portland, Maine is known for his wonderful additions to this writing community.As a young child “King” went through a traumatic experience of seeing his friend being struck by a train.King’s parents say he came home “speechless and seemingly in shock.”, but does not seem to have any recollection of it ever happening.His past experiences have influenced his dark productions such as finding a stack of “short stories, entitled The Lurker in the Shadows,”by H.P. Lovecraft, which all belonged to his father that left at a younger age.He went on to tell “Barnes & Noble Studios during a 2009 interview, "I knew that I'd found home when I read that book.” Stating that he knew he was supposed to write horror stories in his upcoming life.However, King’s first published novel “Carrie” was a book he didn’t believe would make it as big as it did.

“Carrie” is a great product of King’s imaginative horror,suspenseful, and science fiction works. The story is written in epistolary form, which is a bunch of newspaper clippings,articles from magazines, and letters from different characters thrown together to give off the telling of a story.Most of it circles around third point of view.It was released April 5,1979, which had an estimate of first print -run of 30,000 copies.King said that he found that the book was quite “raw”, but “had a surprising power to hurt and horrify”.His wife “Tabitha or Tabby” was actually the person who asked King to continue on his journey writing it.It actually went on to profit him $2,500 in advance, but was $400,000 in paperback rights later on.The book is a generally banned book in the United States School System.However, lucky our school.

King says the book was based on two girls he knew during high school growing up.It is advertised as a story of “how women find their own channels of power, and what men fear about women and women’s sexuality.”The story establishes the scenes of a young girl who day in and day out is bullied by her peers, has a highly religious mother,and finds she has telekinetic powers. Carrie is a soft-spoken child manipulated by everyone that she comes into contact with in life.She is a curious teenage girl who just wants to be accepted, but her mother will not let her have that, crushing her under the influence of praying and “God’s way” every minute she can get.

Reflecting back on this book, I can say it was good to get through it. The scenes were easy to read individually, but put together was hard to follow due to its form of writing. It would be like if I read some of it, sat it down, and came back to it;I would have to reread what I previously did. This book requires patience and time.Its 199 page size does not change the difference. In order to comprehend what is happening in the book a person must carefully follow which ever clipping they are reading at the time is describing or saying.

A word of advice about this book is if you don’t have the greatest memory, or patience to go back, and check what you previously read, THIS IS NOT THE BOOK FOR YOU. You will probably consistently have to do that, but not everyone is the same, and may not have the same problems. However, if you are passionately dedicated to read this book before you attend the new remake film of it in theaters, or have heard so much about it, than be my guess. It is a intriguingly interesting, creepy,and is written an a almost mystery type of writing.If you find bullying a little to hard to read, then this may not be the best story to pick on the shelf.You constantly find yourself asking the question “Why are you not doing something?” You begin to lose “YOUR” mentality and morals. This book pulls you into a world of bullying that no one should ever have to go through. It enlightens a whole other side of King’s imaginative skills from his early ages.

Citing

Title:Carrie

Author:Stephen E. King

Publisher:Doubleday 

Date of publication:April 5,1974

Number of pages:199

Genre:Horror,Epistolary,Tragedy 

"Welcome to StephenKing.com." Welcome to StephenKing.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.

King, Stephen E. "Carrie (novel)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Oct. 2013. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.

"Stephen King." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Oct. 2013. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.