Stephen King is a household name at this point in his career, but in 1974, he was an aspiring novelist who was celebrating his success of his first published novel, “Carrie.”

“Carrie” is a horror novel that takes place in the late ’70s and follows the tragic senior year of awkward teen, Carrie White.

Carrie is abused at both home and school, by her bible-thumping mother and her awful, bullying classmates.

The novel begins with Carrie getting her first menstrual period ever in the high school’s gym showers.

Thinking that she is bleeding to death, Carrie panics and the girls in her class ridicule her by throwing feminine hygiene products and taunting her.

During the stress of the incident, a light bulb explodes, showing the beginning of Carrie’s telekinetic powers.

Eventually, Carrie’s gym teacher comes to her rescue.

When Carrie arrives home, her mother is convinced that Carrie’s period means that she is being punished by God as Eve was after committing the first sin.

Carrie is thrown into a closet and forced to pray for hours, which was a common punishment for her to have to endure.

In the time leading up to prom, Carrie begins to discover and hone her telekinetic powers while her schoolmates plot revenge on her after they were punished for bullying her.

However, not all of her classmates are awful people. Sue deeply regrets her involvement in Carrie’s torture and wants to make emends by having her boyfriend, Tommy take Carrie to prom.

The climax of “Carrie” is well-known, Carrie wins prom queen and has pigs’ blood dumped on her which leads to a telekinetic homicide adventure.

“Carrie” has been adapted into several films by the same title. The first was released in 1976, starring Sissy Spacek and the most recent released this October starring Chloe Grace Moretz.

For some reason, “Carrie” is often banned from schools, perhaps because of the violence or because in the ’70s people did not talk about periods.

The banning is a bit odd because if you want to hinder bullying than letting people read a story where bullies are brutally murdered might be a solid way to go.

More proms would probably be burnt down if telekinesis was more of an epidemic because bullying is certainly no rarer than it was in the ’70s, if anything, due to the internet, bullying has just become easier.

Weirdos like Carrie still take the bulk of the teenager to teenager hate.

The moral of “Carrie” is to take other’s feelings into consideration unless you are absolutely positive that they do not have telekinetic powers.

For more information about “Carrie” and more of King’s horror novels visit stephanking.com

Paige Jurgensen / Columnist

Paige Jurgensen can be reached at [email protected]