blogcritic: Review Of Cells

blogcritic has a very insightful review of Cell. Just a few quotes, but check out the website because the review really is strong:

Characters:
"What's important is how King makes us feel and for these characters, and we genuinely care what becomes of them. Characters are not introduced as fodder for these crazed attackers, but if and when new characters come along before you know it — even it's only just a few chapters later — we suddenly fret if they find themselves in any sort of danger."

Brilliant:
"the brilliance of Cell is how King manages to mix exploration of humanity with a powerful and engaging apocalyptic story. Those hungry for King's more macabre, even horrible, descriptions are all there. These zombies — or, as King calls them, "Phone Crazies" and later "Phoners" — are more like humans than the ones found in either George A. Romero (whom the book is dedicated to) or Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead. To begin with they still speak, but only in babbling form. Just about the time of Gayton Academy and when a couple more survival companions come into the picture, the revelation of the advancement of these Phoners is revealed, and it brings a deeper layer to the proceedings. What could have been over-the-top nonsense instead becomes over-the-top and fascinating. The areas King gets into are both satisfying — often in their lack of description as much as in their abundance of description — and shocking."

Verdict:
Cell represents a refreshing, grizzly, creepy and often powerful exploration of the nature of humanity, what happens to a society when the rules have been stripped away and it's every man, woman and child — whether they're aware of it or not — for themselves. As always, King is unmatched in his description of things ranging from the out of the ordinary (for example, a muscled young man frantically stabbing car aerials into the air) to the mundane. The 355 page novel is nowhere near Stephen King's best — can he ever top classics like The Shining and Misery, and would fans admit so even if he did? — but it's a thoroughly engrossing and satisfying read.

http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-cell-by-stephen-king2/