Carrie by Stephen King - A Short Summary & Review
Carrie by Stephen King - A Short Summary & Review
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review
A short summary:
Carrie White is a painfully isolated teenage girl growing up under the control of a fanatically religious mother and the cruelty of her classmates. Awkward, sheltered, and relentlessly bullied, Carrie discovers she possesses telekinetic abilities just as her emotional world begins to fracture.
When humiliation reaches a breaking point, long-suppressed rage and grief erupt with devastating consequences. Carrie is not simply a story about supernatural power; it’s an indictment of cruelty, neglect, and what happens when empathy arrives too late.
My favorite quote from the book:
Questions to ponder while reading:
My review of Carrie:
I will always feel bad for Carrie.
This book hurts because the horror is rooted in very real things: bullying, abuse, and social exclusion. Stephen King doesn’t ask readers to fear Carrie; he asks them to understand how she was created. The supernatural elements amplify the tragedy, but the true monsters are the people who pushed her there.
The bullying is infuriating.
The parental abuse is unbearable.
And the prom scene—pig’s blood? Really?—is grotesque precisely because it feels so deliberately cruel.
Carrie is unsettling not because of telekinesis, but because it forces readers to confront how casually society destroys vulnerable people. It’s a short novel with an enormous emotional punch, and one that still feels painfully relevant.
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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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