Young Writers Society

Hey Everyone!
I just finished reading Cell by Stephen King! I was skeptical at first because I've never been one who enjoys horror books, but I was pleasantly surprised. Although the book itself was definitley scary, I absolutley loved it! It was well written and suspenseful and the author was always one step ahead of me, which I thought was really important! I would give it 10/10 if I could. What did all of you think?

I read Cell.

I was looking for a good scare, but what I found instead was a cliche apocalyptic novel. Like all Stephen King books, the book needed to be about 100 pages shorter. It started out excellent- with violence, blood and confusion. The story quickly went downhill when king put in supernatural elements such as the telepathic powers of the phoners.

Most of the book was the characters walking and making stupid decisions. They freak out when the phoners begin to evolve, which I would view as a good sign. Clay's desparate search for his son is annoying and pointless. The whole time the group walked around I was just about shouting, "FIND A &*#! CAR!"

The ending was horrible. The MC's basically doom civilization by defeating the phoners. The book left me with many questions. Why was the signal put out in the first place?

I felt King knew that his book was rather cliched, so he put in a lot of gore to make up for it. The gore seemed forced and I could tell it was put in as a filler.

5/10

I much prefer his phsycological horror such as "Pet Sematary" and 'The Shining"

Stephen King is by far my favorite author out there. but some of his new stuff really hasn't done it for me. i read cell expecting (okay, half-expecting) some sort of new version of The Stand (my favorite book) but what i got was a great beginning and a let down of an ending. like i said, most of his newer stuff really hasn't done it for me. Lisey's Story i found to be painful. Duma Key (his newest) was actually pretty good, nothing like his classics though. Cell was a letdown for me. i could understand how you liked it if it was your first king book, but try some of his older ones like The Shining and The Stand. those are amazing.

Stephen King is by far my favorite author out there. but some of his new stuff really hasn't done it for me. i read cell expecting (okay, half-expecting) some sort of new version of The Stand (my favorite book) but what i got was a great beginning and a let down of an ending. like i said, most of his newer stuff really hasn't done it for me. Lisey's Story i found to be painful. Duma Key (his newest) was actually pretty good, nothing like his classics though. Cell was a letdown for me. i could understand how you liked it if it was your first king book, but try some of his older ones like The Shining and The Stand. those are amazing.

I enjoyed Cell. I disagree with Haruno Sakura, who said that it needed to be shorter. Stephen King is known for how long and indepth his stories are, for how much character development he puts in. I agree with bc3553 that his newer stuff isn't as good as his other works. I definitlely suggest reading The Stand if you liked Cell. (maybe even read the exteneded version that's over 1000 pages lol).

No. Dear God. Do not read the 1000 page version of The Stand as I did.

Ooh, come on Antigone Cadmus...
I don't think I could read any other version of The Stand...
I absolutely LOVED that book... for that one (unlike many others, I have to agree) does not and absolutely CANNOT be shortened.
The characters are soooo well developed and what he describes them doing is things that could and would truly happen.

The Cell, however (the whole reason FOR this thread... haha, oops) was okay. I certainly didn't like it as well as I was hoping...
Three fourths into the book and I was bored to tears with it.

I am not the hugest fan of Stephen King... maybe something is horribly awry with my sense of horror, but I haven't been frightened with any of his books yet.
The plot I had no trouble with; the characters I despised. I don't remember why exactly, the details are all rumpled and thrown in with each other; but I remember a shoe. I remember the girl who carried the shoe and I remember hating her.
And the ending was unsatisfying. I felt like I had read the book and gotten nothing out of it.
I loved pet sematary; but it didn't frighten me at all. And the father-son relationship seemed much more believable in Pet Sematary than in this.
It wasn't a bad book; it just wasn't any good.

Cell was the first Stephen King book I finished. I liked it.

For some reason I pictured the lead Phoner as Morgan Freeman. It was pretty cool visualizing it that way. A nice fast paced read.

After Cell I read IT. That was a very long book, over a thousand pages! But I devoured every word of it.

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I don't know why but I never actually find Stephen King books scary. I become more interested in how clever King is in making his stories scary. The only book of his that was horrorful for me was Pet Sematary and King admits himself that he thinks it is the scariest he has written.

Regarding Cell, yes, I have read it. It was a pretty good read but probably not my favourite work of his. It was very well written but the storyline and the whole complex was a bit shallow - people dying from phones?
My favourite is probably the Shining. Now that is a unique story and also incorporates some supernatural elements. Much, much, much better than the movie. I don't understand why the movie received such rave reviews.

EDIT: Just found out Stephen King is writing a sequel to the Shining. Woot!