Carrie may be picked on by her classmates but she has a gift. She can move things with her mind. Doors lock. Candles fall. This is her power and her problem.

To be invited to Prom Night by Tommy Ross is a dream come true for Carrie — the first step towards social acceptance by her high school colleagues. Until an unexpected cruelty turns her gift into a weapon of terror and destruction that no one will ever forget.

I purchased a copy of this book for my own reading.

I’ve been a fan of Stephen King for many years now. He has some absolutely iconic reads. From The Green Mile to The Shining, IT and Misery, some of the best-known novels have flowed from his pen. And yet, one has always managed to elude me. The first one he ever published – Carrie. So in a year of trying new books from new authors, it also felt strangely fitting to pick up the one book that first introduced the world to one of my favourite authors.

And it most definitely did not disappoint. Even at such an early stage in his career, the eerie atmosphere and dark happenings that King is known for can be felt in spades here. Carrie follows high school outcast Carrie White, so often the object of torment and bullying by her peers and her hyper-religious mother. The trauma leads to significant spikes in telekinetic powers that Carrie has always had. The powers increase with horrific results.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and wonder why I hadn’t read it before now. It’s told through a mixture of narrated story and snippets of reports from articles, news bulletins, oversight reviews and books written on the incident and the subject of telekinesis to tell the story from a variety of perspectives. It’s not full-blown horror like King is often known for, but it is an incredible way for a then-unknown author to explode onto the scene.

My rating: