'Carrie' - Stephen King

I am not normally a fan of horror stories, but I must say that I really enjoyed 'Carrie.' I could not believe this was Stephen King's first novel and my favourite thing about it is his author's note at the begining - it really helps you to understand the motivations and thoughts of the author as he was writing this and it is immensly satisfying to see where this influence has come into play.

I was not surprised this book was on the LOST list - the writing is very good, with similar technique to certain episodes. I can almost see the connection between character Carrie and Juliet Burke - in that isolation and the feeling of being an outsider. A pretty violent book for Juliet though - although I suppose she has some pretty violent tendancies herself.

I guess that was my only criticism of the novel - the ending was a touch overdone I felt. A little bit too violent - I didn't really see the need to blow up the gas main, or kill all the people on the street with power lines. The townspeople never came into Carrie's story until that moment, and they felt like unnecessary collateral damage. I got the feeling the author spent a lot of time and painstaking effort building up to the Titanic moment, the exlosion we all knew was coming, that he litterally could not hold back and just went to town.

The ending was very poetic - I felt everything paid off from his writing style and the characters. A very fitting ending, especially with the last letter implying the possiblity of another individual as unique as Carrie...

On the whole it was an incredible book - enjoyable even though the content was horrible. It was superbly written - no wonder he is so popular now! I really enjoyed the Titanic type sense of doom - the audience knows by the half way mark almost exactly what is going to happen at that prom, and yet you cannot help but continue reading to watch it happen anyway!