Carrie (Livre de Poche: Fantastique)

by Stephen King

Carrie White is no ordinary girl. Carrie White has the gift of telekinesis. To be invited to the Prom by Tommy Ross is a dream come true, and a step towards social acceptance by her high school peers. But events take a macabre turn on that horrifying and endless night.

• ISBN10: 0450018628
• ISBN13: 9780450018626
• Publish Date: 1 May 1974
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 2 March 2002
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
• Imprint: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 224
• Language: English

Reviews

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

CARRIE as a story is compelling and enraging - it's a perfect example of how a good writer can take an unremarkable character and rope the reader into rooting for them. It's all about an unforgivable environment, and CARRIE has that in spades. The story we have here in interesting, and I can see why it has resonated. But the book itself is not that interesting.

This is a piece of King's earlier work, and it shows in how scattered the narrative is and the lack of depth and surprise. Even without the cultural consciousness of the story (which permeates and leavens room for surprise), we are well aware of the ending leagues before it happens. And, to some extent, even the details fail to catch the reader unawares. The wrap up is too long, and we stop just short of really getting into the character's heads. I think if this book had come later in King's career, we'd've gotten a much darker story, one that crushed its readers hearts into a bloody paste. As it is, CARRIE is more of a dossier, a collection of recollections of a remarkable, injured girl and the thing she did.

I could take or leave this one.

For a more detailed review of this and other books as well as other bookish content, please swing by The Literary Phoenix.

[thepunktheory]

Book vs. Movie:
Just like Shining, the film adaptation is different from the book.
Stephen King's novel gives a deep insight. Not only in Carrie White's feelings and thoughts but also in other people intentions. There's extensive coverage of Sue Snell and also of Chris Hargensen. Furthermore, the book is spiked with newspaper articles and scientifical stuff that tries to investigate the events Carrie White was involved in.
The movie on the other hand lets you look right through Carrie's eyes. You feel her pain. For some reason the film gets deeper under your skin than the book. The novel gives you the position of a bystander. You watch all the events from a certain distance, the movie throws you right in.
However, the movie also shows events differently. Until the Prom film and novel correspond pretty much, but from there on the story changes. I don't want to spoil anything so let me just say Carrie's destruction and killing spree is far more extensive. Despite that, the book somehow is more conciliatory. For me it seems like Carrie finds her peace whereas in the movie she never does.
What I prefer about the movie is that the sports teacher really seems like an adult. In Stephen King's novel she appears to be more like a student herself but on screen she's almost like a mother figure.
The book on the other hand has a stronger impression when it comes to Carrie's mother. She may be crazy in the screen adaptation, but in the novel she's a complete maniac. The scenes about her fanatic religious outbursts are far more intense in the novel.

Summing up I can only say that it's worth reading the book and watching the movie. Each version highlight different aspect of the story and therefore give different pictures of the same plot. However, Sissy Spacek is absolutely brilliant. I couldn't have imagined a more perfect Carrie White (although she was 27 when she auditioned for the role). It was filmed wonderfully and comes up with extremely strong images. For example the opening sequence in the shower is almost dreamlike. Brian De Palma knows what he's doing when it comes to making movies, just like Stephen King does with books!

[angelarenea9]

This review is posted on my blog

What happens when you mix high school, crazy, and supernatural powers? Carrie, that's what! This was my first venture into the world of Stephen King. I know what you're thinking how did this girl escape Stephen King for 25 years? Surely she's encountered it and just doesn't know it! Well my friends, you would be wrong. I was busy reading and re-reading, The Hobbit, and Harry Potter, and perusing the forums for fan theories. So now, years past when I should have been exposed to things everyone knows about, I'm trying to catch up. A wonderful woman I work with suggested to me that I start with Carrie so I did.

The first thing that struck me about this book was that it was wonderfully written. Even the sporadic writing style of jumping from narrative, to documents and back again oddly worked. The only thing I knew about Stephen King was that he's 'that horror guy with a million books' so I was under the impression that someone with that many books could not possibly be that high quality. Boy was I wrong!

While I didn't find this scary, I thought it was a brutal view of a tortured high school student with exaggerated consequences. The frank discomfort that this book gives the reader is so effective in getting it's message across.

The way this book is designed you know from the beginning it's not going to end well, but I still had that hope that if Carrie could just hang in there until after high school, things might be OK.

I was very excited to find that this is also the first novel that Mr. King wrote, and that I can continue through his books chronologically (I love chronological reading!) and see his writing progress!

I would absolutely recommend this book to every high school student. Perhaps if more students put themselves in the head of the 'losers' they would be a little nicer. I would also recommend this to almost anyone, as it is an excellent book.

[clq]

I did wonder whether Stephen King's first published novel would be a mild, toe-in-the-water, version of what followed. It isn't. Carrie is a full-on mixture of the elements of anger, fear, sadness, abuse and the supernatural that are found in his later books. And it's a good mixture.
Through various sources, retrospective and in-the-moment, we follow the story of Carrie. Carrie has always taken abuse from everyone around her, and at some point she will inevitably snap. As it happens, Carrie has some special powers which could easily make her snap something out of the ordinary.


This is a very well done "impending doom" story which meticulously builds up the various elements of the story before it reaches the conclusion. A very worthwhile and enjoyable read.

[Nessa Luna]

Read this review, and many more on my blog October Tune!

For King’s March, I decided to read Carrie, as I really liked both movies (the one from 1976 and the one from 2013) and I wanted to know if the book was as good as those movies! And it was!

Carrie has a lot of articles, interviews and passages of books in between the story, and though I liked it at first, it started to annoy me near the end. Because I really just wanted to read the story through Carrie’s eyes, or through someone else’s eyes for that matter (and I don’t like multiple POV’s), not through a police interrogation, or a passage from a book someone who’d been there had written. So yeah, that was actually the main reason I didn’t give it more than three stars (or, Daleks actually).

I quickly started to hate on the group of girls that bullied Carrie at the beginning of the book, and I hated them more and more throughout the whole book. Especially Chris Hargensen; she just reminded me of all the people that bullied/teased me throughout my entire school time.

Speaking about the movie(s), of course the book was different from both movies (though I don’t remember much of the 1976 one), especially prom night and the events that happen afterwards. That was just completely different from the book in the new movie.

But I really liked the way the Prom Night events were described, and though like I said before, I was annoyed at all the articles and interviews (I just skimmed through most of them near the end), I really liked the story and it really made me want to rewatch the movies (to see if there’s any differences, not just between the movies and the book, but between both movies as well).

I like Stephen King’s writing, and it certainly has made me want to read more books by him. I still can’t believe I’ve never read any books by him before now.

[boghunden]

This was weird. Very weird. It wasn't what I expected, but it was good :) 3,5 stars.

[celinenyx]

A classic in the horror genre, and written over thirty years ago, this book is still very enjoyable. I read it to get in the appropriate Halloween spirit, and I must say, Carrie certainly fit the bill!

On a traumatic afternoon in the group showers after PE Carrie gets her first period. After being picked on by her classmates for years, this only makes it worse. Her extremely religious mother has never told her about periods. Then unexplainable things start to happen around Carrie.. Resulting in a horrible night the world won't forget soon.

Having read a few books of Mr King (including It and Insomnia) I have seen quite a bit of his writing style. This was one of the first of his shorter books I have read. Even though I enjoy his longer work, it was nice to see him focus on one storyline for a change, with just a small cast of characters. One of the things I always enjoy in his books is how he portrays the character's thoughts. He understands that thoughts are rarely full formed sentences, but more like snippets of memories and impressions.

Mr King's other big strength lies in describing dysfunctional relationships. The relationship between Carrie and her extremist mother was wonderfully crafted. Instead of making her mother a monster, he adds a touch of humanity that makes her into a three-dimensional character. The same thing with Carrie herself; you know from very early on in the story that she will probably kill some people. You don't know how, but you get the feeling she will. Yet still, the only thing I wanted to do was to hug her and tell her everything would be al right. She's just a sweet girl, pushed too far.

Carrie is a collection of newspaper scraps, reports, scientific books, a memoir, and the "real" storyline. I quite liked the idea; but towards the ending I wished that there was more "real" and less other stuff. At times it took a bit of speed out of the story.

For people that want to read some Stephen King, but don't know where to start, I would certainly recommend Carrie. It's a great story, and I will probably read it again sometime!