So after reading The Shining and loving it I decided to explore some more of King's work (I was going to type "carry on with" but the pun was unbearable). So the next story in my bumper book of King was Carrie.
Like with The Shining I had seen the film of Carrie before I read the book so I knew roughly what happened, and I say roughly because with these books I'm never sure exactly what's going on.
So I started reading and I recognised the iconic shower scene but there were some additions that you lose in the film. Obviously you get more insight into the characters because you can read what they are thinking but there was also an extra element to the narrative that I really enjoyed. While most of the story is told in the present, the narrative is interspersed with extracts from books and newspaper articles written after the event. These range from scientific explanations to first hand accounts to sensational news stories and it really adds to the tension. Now I knew roughly what was going to happen, and to give you a clue Carrie is a social outcast who discovers she has psychic powers, but I was still kept in suspense pretty much all the way through the book. And I wasn't disappointed because the climax of the book is 100x scarier and more violent than the film.
Knowing the end actually made some parts of the book harder to read, for example Sue and her boyfriend Tommy try to reach out and do a nice thing for Carrie but it doesn't end well. I felt bad for them in the film but in the book I actually was on the verge of tears because they are portrayed as such nice people and I knew what was going to happen to them. This is especially sad because one of the books used for extracts is a first hand account of prom night by Sue.
So this book is tense and scary and really compelling. I thought I knew what was going to happen but I was kept constantly on my toes and ended up reading the whole thing in one day. Stephen King does it again, I'm starting to get why he's such a big deal.
Like with The Shining I had seen the film of Carrie before I read the book so I knew roughly what happened, and I say roughly because with these books I'm never sure exactly what's going on.
So I started reading and I recognised the iconic shower scene but there were some additions that you lose in the film. Obviously you get more insight into the characters because you can read what they are thinking but there was also an extra element to the narrative that I really enjoyed. While most of the story is told in the present, the narrative is interspersed with extracts from books and newspaper articles written after the event. These range from scientific explanations to first hand accounts to sensational news stories and it really adds to the tension. Now I knew roughly what was going to happen, and to give you a clue Carrie is a social outcast who discovers she has psychic powers, but I was still kept in suspense pretty much all the way through the book. And I wasn't disappointed because the climax of the book is 100x scarier and more violent than the film.
Knowing the end actually made some parts of the book harder to read, for example Sue and her boyfriend Tommy try to reach out and do a nice thing for Carrie but it doesn't end well. I felt bad for them in the film but in the book I actually was on the verge of tears because they are portrayed as such nice people and I knew what was going to happen to them. This is especially sad because one of the books used for extracts is a first hand account of prom night by Sue.
So this book is tense and scary and really compelling. I thought I knew what was going to happen but I was kept constantly on my toes and ended up reading the whole thing in one day. Stephen King does it again, I'm starting to get why he's such a big deal.
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