Cell by Stephen King

One of my managers found out I had never read a Stephen King novel and several days later she set Cell down in front of me and told me I had to read it. So I did.

When I got a few pages in, I wasn't sure I would be able to continue reading. I am not a fan of gore, and the first couple chapters of this book are full of people going crazy and ripping each other apart. Full on Zombie action, basically. But I kept reading and after once the story started moving there was less of the gore and stuff and the story itself was really interesting.

Cell is about a pulse that is somehow sent through all cell phones worldwide. Anyone who uses one essentially gets their brain wiped clean and re-wired. When you think about it, it's really an interesting commentary on how much the world relies on cell phones these days.

As I said before, it's my first Stephen King novel so I can't really compare it with any others, though I'll probably be reading more soon (Lisey's Story and The Duma Key are currently bargain books at Barnes & Noble, so I bought both).

I feel like I have to explain one thing, the fact that I have never read anything by King has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of interest in his writing. I've aways been fascinated by The Shining and really want to read it, and some of his other books. I think it's more the fact that the sheer size of all his novels has always intimidated me. Unlike authors like James Patterson and Nora Roberts, I actually have respect for Stephen King and his writing. (No offense if you like Patterson or Roberts, but I really feel like they just mass produce books for the profit, not for the writing itself. I mean, Patterson has had 3 books come out in 5 months and I guarantee he'll publish at least 5 more by the end of the year. Plus, 90% of those books are co-written by another author, so chances are, that other author did most of the work and Patterson just approved and slapped his name on it so it would become an immediate bestseller. I'm sorry if you're a fan, but I just can't respect the man.)

Now that I've gotten my Patterson rant out of the way, I'll close this post by saying that I really enjoyed my first Stephen King novel and plan on reading many more in the future.