Carrie - First impressions - mid read

From the onset I'm immediately struck by a few things.

1) For a first novel, this has some dynamite to it.  It comes off as a little raw, and everyone's dialogue feels like it comes from the same voice, but there's some hints of greatness here.

2) That opening is just...brutal.  I can't imagine any scenario more humiliating and horrifying than having your first period ever at the age of 17 (not even being aware of the concept, thanks to her wacko-crazy mother)...in the school showers in front of a significant portion of her school class.  She's naked...she thinks she's bleeding to death/dying...and the girls, unbelievably, start throwing tampons and sanitary napkins at her, chanting "plug it up."  This is just difficult stuff.  It's so awful as to be believable.

3) I like the construct of intercutting the narrative with news articles, court testimony, book snippets, foreshadowing the horror of what is to come.  It has a very Bram Stoker feel to it.  It also clues us in, very early, that some bad hoodoo is gonna go down.  It keeps me interested, at least at the start, because without the hint of bloodshed to come, this part of the book is difficult to get through.  Not that its bad, but its intentionally uncomfortable.

4) I'm struck with how relevant this story is, even 40 years later.  We're dealing with sexism, bullying, sex education, religious freedom.

5) As someone who grew up in a small town (pop: less than 3,000), I really appreciate how effortless the small rural town setting feels.  It's scary and disturbing because its so familiar.

There are a few fingerprints here or there that remind you that we're dealing with an author still figuring things out, but King does a few stylistic things in his narrative that stand out right away, particularly his use of parentheses to indicate internal thought.  It's efficient, in that he doesn't have to slow down his narrative by using phrases like "he thought" or "she wondered."  And it's also cool how he can take that parenthetical thought and imbed it in the center of another sentence, allowing the reader to entertain the characters thought at the very instant that character thinks it.  It's unique and clever.

Enjoying the book so far.