Fall!! (plus some not-at-all-original thoughts on Carrie)

[maplemood]

The weather's finally shifted! Cold and rainy for the most part, but we've had two or three really lovely, this-is-what-I'm-talking-about, FALL days--bright and crisp and cool. The leaves are even starting to change! Not a whole lot yet, but hey, I'll take what I can get. It's wonderful to be (hopefully) done with all the humidity, anyway. And also a great reminder that Halloween's right around the corner; I've been getting into the spirit by promising myself I'll sit down to watch The Haunting of Hill House when I have just a little more time, promising myself I'll finish Penny Dreadful...tomorrow (one more episode to go now and I don't wanna), and reading Carrie for the first time. It doesn't quite top IT as my favorite Stephen King so far, but I might put it just a space above The Shining? For no other reason than that, even though I knew the story backwards and forwards years before I ever read it, I still came away haunted by Carrie. She's a wonderful character, and the way she's written puts you in the (very) uncomfortable position of getting (even if only a little bit) why she's the butt of every single joke--she's awkward and alone and pitiable in a way that makes her almost unlikable, exactly the kind of person no one wants to be in high school, and identifying with her isn't always as easy as identifying with, say, Sue, who isn't cruel on her own but makes no effort to befriend or help Carrie until it's too late. Plus, the book moves along very quickly, like pretty much all the Stephen King books I've read before, but it has the added advantage of not being 400+ pages. I breezed through it in two or three days, which was a nice change of pace.