Carrie by Stephen King

Carrie by Stephen King- 253 pgs

Carrie White is "that girl" in school.  Friendless and bullied at school, things don't get much better at home.  Her mother is a religious zealot who punishes Carrie by forcing to pray in a closet for hours at a time.  There is a secret about Carrie that only her mother knows:  Carrie is telekinetic.  When she is humiliated at the prom, everyone feels her wrath and her telekinetic powers come to come into their full power.  No one is safe.  

Carrie by Stephen King

Carrie by Stephen King, 305 pages

It has always been goal of mine to read a Stephen King novel.  I finally achieved this goal by reading this classic.  The movie was recently remade with Julianne Moore as the mother.  I remember the original movie with Sissy Spacek as Carrie back in the 1970s.  With the remake of the movie, the book has been re-released with a new cover.  I always like to read books before the movie, but in this case, I think it helped to see the movie before reading the book.  This book does not disappoint. With Halloween being today, I could not think of a more appropriate book to get the scare factor rolling.   Today, Carrie would be considered a victim of bullying, but her retaliation after what happens at prom is beyond gruesome.  Carrie and her telekinetic powers end up killing over 400 people in her small Maine hometown. Stephen King is a very talented writer who describes his scenes with much detail.

Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris

Dead Ever After: The Final Sookie Stackhouse Novel by Charlaine Harris --- 338 pages

Fans of the best selling Sookie Stackhouse books (and the hit HBO series, True Blood, based on the books), will be saddened to know that Sookie's paranormal adventures with vampires, shapeshifters, faeiries, demons, witches, and an assortment of psychically gifted (or afflicted, depending on your point of view) humans have come to an end.

An escalating series of events have left Sookie feeling rather battered emotionally, but just as Sookie thinks her life can't get any more complicated she finds herself arrested for murder. Her friends rally to her support and soon discover evidence that indicates Sookie has been framed by someone --- or several someones --- who carry serious grudges against her.

Harris has done a fine job of winding up loose threads as Sookie learns to let go of the past and look to the  future with a little more patience and a lot more understanding of herself and other people (of whatever kind).