I don't think I enjoyed this as much as other readers did. Probably in part because I wasn't expecting this to be a Carrie retelling. And it didn't hold up for what I personally would have wanted from it.Things I liked about the story: I think the switch to a plot line more based around racism and passing as white in the South were a nice twist to the classic story. White paint being used at the prom instead of pig's blood was a neat touch to stress the racism/white passing concepts more. Having multiple point of views gave more depth to the story in places. Female rage - always an interesting element to a story.
Things I didn't care for: I'm not a big fan of the interjections for the interviews. I get the reasoning for it but it took me out of the story every time. It also read as YA to me, it isn't always a bad thing but I think it impacted my reading as I couldn't connect to the characters in any capacity. As a Carrie fan, I just thought this followed the original story too closely for me to really like it. I thought it was a really interesting Carrie retelling, and even had a Stephen King mention. I thought the racism discussions really added depth to the story, and the nuance of the white characters, versus a white-passing character, and even the different experiences Kenny and his sister had with racism in the small town was really well done. I do think Maddy survived, and I'm glad. Most of the people got what they deserved, especially that awful girl who did the black face and dropped the paint.
