i picked this up because i had never read a stephen king novel and read it in the space of a couple days, and i suppose it was sufficiently gripping for me to want to finish it, but just, no.

some of the ideas are good and some of the characters are interesting, mostly the stuff revolving around carrie’s mom and her fanaticism and repulsion with sex and her body in general, but as a whole the book does not work at all.

the constant references to outside sources and quoting of authoritative books on the subject of “what happened at prom night!!!!!” are basically pleasant, mildly interesting filler for most of the book, but then when shit goes down and carrie goes bezerk at the high school, the book completely pulls away from it and falls apart. it feels a persistent and obnoxious need to distance itself from the actual interesting events going on at the high school, and dances around it in what is probably supposed to be ‘the building of suspense’ but is pretty much just a chore.

so yeah, not that great. maybe i should have picked a different novel for my first stephen king book. any suggestions?