“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win.” -Stephen King
Halloween might’ve already passed, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to stop celebrating it. There are many authors around the world who write amazing horror/suspenseful books, but one of them is the King himself.
Stephen King is an international best-selling author known for his chilling novels like Cujo, It, The Shining, Doctor Sleep, and many others! He’s written many novels which have sold millions across the globe. In 1974, he wrote his best-selling novel, Carrie,which is one of his most successful works.
Carrie is a classic horror novel which lead to 3 movies (original, sequel and a re-make of the first one). It’s about a girl who, in her senior year, has gotten her period for the first time. Carrie is a shy, innocent girl so, when she got it for the first time, she freaked out because she had no idea what was going on. She had an overprotective, although more like psychotic, mother who tried her best to keep Carrie closed off from experiencing ”teenage life”. Due to her shyness and innocence, everyone in her school bullied her constantly. At prom, she finally snaps after being dumped with a bucket of pig’s blood.
Now, at first glance, the plot itself was difficult to understand because of King’s interesting way of describing certain events. If you were to read it a second or third time, you would be able to understand the novel. Since this was King’s first ever novel, the details weren’t exactly specific, and sometimes even contradicting in a way, due to the confusing point of views. However, the novel itself is good either way. It gives you a chilling story which might end up giving you nightmares about that one person everyone in your school makes fun of. It also has a good moral: don’t bully anyone, it isn’t worth it and you’ll just get wrecked in the end if you do.
It’s a no-brainer to see why this novel is a major classic in the literate and cinematic world. Many people actually relate to Carrie a lot because of how bad their experience with bullying in school is. Stephen King definitely tried to show with this novel that the true monsters are those who treat others like they don’t matter in this world. I give this novel 4.5 out of 5 stars because of its impact within the literature, cinematic and real world.