'Carrie' by Stephen King (Book Review)

On the event that the thought registered successfully, I have vowed to myself that I will read Carrie when the night battles the day, Halloween eve. Unsurprisingly, I found my hands glued to the edges of the paperback, while my teeth chatters like frenzy, chills crept under my skin - the perfect Halloween treat. There's no use of explaining why or how the book was creepy, I suppose. Carrie is one of the few things in the world that are already given. I've read the book twice this Halloween (the season is, if reports on the internet are reliable these days, extended until today, November 5th), to 1. prove its competence, and 2. if it stays that way. The good news: twice, I closed the book to the very last page with a hideous grin on my face, hinting two divisions in my emotions on the book - sympathy and fright.

Stephen King's first novel reflects how he turned from an impressive novelist to the "master storyteller" we all refer him to as. Carrie, on a mastered epistolary format, while no literary merit that is starkly special, is a fluid narrative despite the constant change in focus and time and setting. You know from the beginning what horrendous tragedy Carrie White is going to bring, and you don't care. King's characterization, especially to Carrie and Sue is stupendous, Sue the most honest character in the novel, better emphasized with her fictitious memoir that is cited in the novel. Margaret White, Carrie's mother, is a derange religious who dedicates her waking hours in devotion of her crazy and equally unnerving beliefs. Margaret's a bitch you want her out of the picture. You are busied following the characters you didn't know the White Commission is gradually building up a horrific climax. The most unsettling element in King's novel is Carrie's hysterics and fear towards womanhood which becomes reality eventually. The thought of wreaking havoc on our high school nemesis in one crumple of the mind terrifies me in an instant. What if I could kill this guy at will? Burst him to blood and guts? The thought alone, is frightening.

King's Carrie is one of my favorite books of all time, and by far, the best horror book I have read. It's immensely relatable, to its own undefined extent - horrendous, the malaise of high school life. The horrors if one telekinetic pimply girl is wildly angered. 4 out of 5 stars.