Carrie, book review. (Stephen King)

So, the return to my roots continues with this, Stephen King's first novel, Carrie.

Carrie White is a loner, she has no friends - and I'd ask you to pause there for a moment and think about that, SHE HAS NO FRIENDS - and ask yourself how life would be for you, if you were in that same situation, with no-one to call when you needed a chat, no one to laugh or cry with. Pretty shitty would be my guess.

Okay, so on top of the lack of friendship, she has a matriarchal mother who is deeply religious and (as most of you may already know) hasn't told her teenage daughter anything about the natural monthly cycle of women, and so, when Carrie starts to bleed, have her first period (she is seventeen) in the communal showers at school, she thinks the worst; she thinks something's wrong, very wrong. Her classmates, however, think it's the ideal time to taunt her and throw sanitary products at her.

The basic premise of the book is that one of her tormentors gains a conscious whilst another does not, in fact, the other goes out of her way to be cruel and nasty, getting herself banned from the up and coming prom, and thinking she did nothing wrong in the first place, seeks revenge.

In a slightly odd way, this book is like a coming of age novel: you have the bully, the loner/geek, the popular beauty and her boyfriend - who are in no doubt who will be crowned prom king and queen - the nasty spiteful girl with the criminal boyfriend, the deeply religious mother and of course, telekinesis, adding yet more layers to our scene.

What I like about this book is threefold. It is written in a way where extracts of books and case studies are inter-spliced with the narrative, giving the reader a sense of reality as if the event depicted actually happened. It builds brilliantly from the very beginning and due to the aforementioned extracts, you get a sense of what's happened before it's revealed in the narrative, which pulls you through the book quickly, and thirdly, the tension between Carrie and her mother.

In spite of her mother's draconian rules, Carrie loves her deeply, but the cracks start to show the minute she gets home from school after the shower incident, with the true extent to which she will go to, to 'protect' her daughter, not felt until Carrie confesses her wish to go to prom later in the book.

There is no doubt that the highlight of the book is the last third, where Carrie literally ripped the town apart. With her peers burning alive in the school - punishment for the years of torment they have rained down on her - she then goes on a rampage, and it is superb. Exploding petrol (gas) stations, pulling down power cables to electrocute the masses, tearing down buildings, all before seeking out her main tormentor, and as a reader, you will her on, you want her to get justice, get her revenge, and it really doesn't stop until the very last few pages.

Four stars for this one then, and an excellent first King novel if you've never read him before.