"Carrie did not think anyone could understand the brute courage it had taken to reconcile herself to this, to leave herself open to whatever fearsome possibilities the night might realize."
....
Finally, helpless, she said: 'Do you like me?'
He said: 'You're beautiful.' "



Wow, I enjoyed this so much more than my first read about 30 years ago. It goes to show that a book belongs half to the author and half to the reader.

The reader brings a lot of who they are too the reading experience each time and somewhere in the intervening decades, I learned to appreciate both Carrie and Sue as characters. I even cried a little at the beginning of part two for Ms. White.

I am also a fan of how the subject of teenage bullying is dealt with in this book. Allowing us to see that most of the kids were just kids and did not really mean to be mean or even think about the hurt they were causing. The teachers defending and championing Carrie in private but failing to let her know that they were on her side and comfort her brings a kind of realistic fallibility to their characters we all have when dealing with bullies and teasing.

The Epistolary format of interviews and excerpts from articles about Carrie managed to heighten the tension nicely. Overall, I found myself unable to put the book down and if you manage to get a couple of tears out of me you nearly always will get a five star.

Recommend to those who like Horror, would like to read a shorter Stephen King (but note as the debut his writing style is not like later works) and have ever really, really wanted to get revenge on bullies.