Carrie/Misery/The Adventures of Tom Sawyer/The Corrections

Carrie - Stephen King (1974)
I went into Carrie knowing very little of the story aside from the climax. I actually had quite high hopes and was sort of let down. For as short of a novel as it is, the pacing was pretty slow and it dragged on way too long post-climax. Still, it was written in a very interesting way, mixing King's usual style with faux-excerpts from studies, reference books and news reports. The best and most intriguing thing about the book is Carrie's backstory, especially the history of her dangerously religious mother and their relationship (all of which is incredibly creepy). Not as great as I was hoping, but still pretty good.

Misery - Stephen King (1987)

Messed up, difficult and painful in all the right ways, however, King drags his story on quite a bit longer than he needed to. More of a demented character study than anything, Misery is a fascinating look at the psyche of a murderously insane woman and how a relatively normal big-wig author deals with being alone with her for an undetermined amount of time (at least many months). The gory parts are good, the painstakingly slow build up is great, but the ending is pretty lame, if not terrible.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain (1876)

Perhaps due to only being passively interested in classics, I've never read any Mark Twain before. I was surprised to find how enjoyable and witty The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ended up being. Twain's masterful usage of language made this hit-and-miss, jumbled together collection of adventures that much better. Not the most amazing thing I've ever read, but truly fun.

The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen (2001)

I had very high expectations for Jonathan Franzen's claim to fame, The Corrections, and they were easily met, if not exceeded, even if the story was much different than I thought it would be. As utterly depressing as pretty much everything that occurred in this novel was, Franzen's style is biting, hip, witty and tremendously fun. Every single main character was equally lovable and infuriating. Though I don't think tensions within my family will ever reach the heights that they do here for the Lamberts, a lot of that aspect of this story hit close to home. Not quite as messed up as I was expecting (and sort of hoping), the ending to The Corrections was satisfactory if not pretty great, and overall it was a fantastic read that I would recommend to anyone and everyone. Easily one of the best books I will read all year, and probably beyond that.