Prom Night

Oh Man.  This book's got it all.  Jaded, spoiled and over-privileged teenage girls looking for "payback" (which is odd since I'm not exactly sure what Chris think's she's getting back at Carrie for...but then again, Chris doesn't seem burdened with an abundance of logic or intelligence), psycho boyfriends, buckets of pigs' blood, the "goodie goodie" girl remorsefully trying to set things right, her sweetheart any-way-the-wind-blows boyfriend.

And a mother-effing scary chick who can kill you with her mind.  

And she's looking for vengeance.

I don't want to belabor the plot too much but, in a nutshell, Carrie goes to prom with Tommy, and they are improbably voted Prom King and Queen.  During the coronation, we get our first hint at how truly dangerous Carrie might be.  Tommy keeps getting these mental flashes that seem to be involuntary projections from Carrie.  It scares him.  And she's not even threatened by him.  Imagine what she could do if she was threatened...

And then two buckets of pigs' blood is dumped on both of them.  Then one of the buckets falls, hits Tommy on the head.  Tommy falls to floor, dying from his injuries.  Carrie seems to sense this.

Then things go sideways. 

Carrie decides to not only get revenge on those who have been bullying her, but on the entire high school.  Everyone must die.  

Eventually that's not enough as she truly flips off her humanity switch and decides to destroy the whole town.

It is really fun to watch it all play out, on the one hand, because we see someone with true super powers coming into their own, and we see her thought process as she discovers new depth and breadth to her powers.  She discovers if she just pictures something in her mind, she can not only figure out how it works, but how to destroy it or use it as a weapon.  On the other hand, this is truly horrifying and scary stuff.

And I loved it.

And yeah yeah, this story's older than I am, has been made into several movies blah blah blah.  I was still unfamiliar with the story, other than the abstract of "girl has powers, uses them for eeeeeevil."  But this was fun and scary at the same time.  I felt bad for enjoying it, but I'll get over it.

And I got chills when Carrie confronted her mother.  The line "full stop" actually made me exclaim out loud.

Review upcoming.