Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Carrie Read-a-Long: Part 1: Blood Sport

This post is the first of three updates for the Carrie Read-a-Long, which covers part 1 of the book, called Blood Sport. This post will probably contain spoilers from the first half of the book. You have been warned!

I've seen the movie Carrie several times, and love it, so I'm happy to find that I'm loving the book, too. This is only my second Stephen King novel (my first was The Shining), and one thing I've learned is that that man can write! I hang on his every word!

The first part of the book basically sets the stage, showing you who Carrie is, and what she's had to deal with. She starts her first period in the worst way possible: in the locker room, surrounded by girls who hate her, and thinking she's bleeding to death. While the teachers ask themselves "why didn't her mom tell her about this?" I just kept asking "why hasn't this 17 year old taken sex ed?!". I guess that's the 70s for you.

One thing I've really been enjoying is how the story is interspersed with excerpts from books written about what happened to Carrie, after the fact. So you get little glimpses of what's going to happen. Like mini-spoilers. I find they really help to build the suspense.

I'm loving this book so far! Now I'm off to read part 2. :)

2 comments:

  1. Lol, yup, it is hard to believe that Carrie didn't have much knowledge of how her body works. Of course, it could still happen today, because Mrs. White strikes me as someone who would keep her daughter far away from Sex Ed, either by refusing to sign the permission slip or keeping her daughter at home.

    I really like the way the book is written, the first time I read it I hadn't seen anything like it.

    Thanks for participating! Hope to see you on Twitter tonight, just look for the #CarrieBS hashtag!

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    1. A permission slip for sex ed?! Is that an American thing? Yikes, that's disturbing.

      I love the way people's thoughts are put in parentheses in their own paragraph, but in the middle of a sentence, so it's awkwardly broken up. I loved that in The Shining and was thrilled to see it in Carrie, too!

      I'm hoping to make the Twitter chat tonight; see you then!

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