Carrie

Stephen King’s first published novel is on the surface the story an unpopular high school student (Carrie White) who discovers she has telekinetic powers. But the best parts of the book are about the experience of high school bullying, and the emotional terror and alienation of being an outcast. Carrie is tight and focused, and King uses epistolary details — newspaper clippings, letters, eyewitness testimony, and US government commission reports — that add to the realism as they persuasively show how society would actually respond to a teenager with supernatural powers. The book was made into a superb 1976 film by Brian De Palma.