A review by court_of_stars
Carrie by Stephen King

3.0

Stephen King's first published novel, "Carrie" is my first encounter with the famous horror author in a fictional landscape. My entire life I have been warned against reading any of King's work if I didn't like horror. I avoided it like the plague. Until two days ago.

How did thirty years of fear build up turn out? Underwhelming.

I dragged myself through the book doing my best to keep the time jumps between actual story and the future books written about the Carrie incident in proper order. On more than one occasion I had to back track through prior pages to figure out who was talking.

When I read a story, a novel, I'm looking to escape my world for the entire duration, and "Carrie" fell short for me. When I read a novel, I want it to be difficult to put it down instead of it being difficult to pick up.

Overall, the story wasn't bad. My biggest wish was that if I could somehow forget that King was supposed to be a horror fiction writer, because I didn't find this scary at all. I was disturbed, angry, and flat out sickened by Carrie's mother. I have a soft spot for bullying stories and found that part uncomfortably relatable.

Yes, I scored this a 3, but I didn't hate it at all. It was a solid book. Obviously Stephen King is doing something right. I will give another of his books a try in the future. It's also completely okay if I end up not thinking King's work is my cup of tea.

For everyone else, Happy Reading!