Cell
Stephen King, 2006
★ 3.65 from 242.6k ratings on Goodreads
Horror Mystery, thriller & crimeFantasyScience fiction
A cell-phone signal turns every caller into a mindless killer, and a father crosses a collapsing world to reach his son. A jittery, blood-soaked opening gives way to a grim road journey, with King's plain voice and a steady hum of dread.
Feels like dread, unease and curiosity. About society, family and madness.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy apocalyptic horror that moves from sudden chaos into a father's long, tense journey. Be warned that some readers find the middle uneven, the supporting characters thin, and the ending abrupt.
Why read it
It offers a fast, grim look at how quickly ordinary life can peel away, while a father's stubborn push through the wreckage gives the chaos a human center.
A page from the book
The speed with which ordinary life becomes archaeology.
Civilization slipped into its second dark age on an unsurprising track of blood, but with a speed that could not have been foreseen by even the most pessimistic futurist. It was as if it had been waiting to go. On October 1, God was in His heaven, the stock market stood at 10,140, and most of the planes were on time (except for those landing and taking off in Chicago, and that was to be expected). Two weeks later the skies belonged to the birds again and the stock market was a memory. By Halloween, every major city from New York to Moscow stank to the empty heavens and the world as it had been was a memory. What readers say
Readers often praise the explosive opening and tense, gory premise, finding it entertaining and unsettling. Others are frustrated by uneven pacing, thin characters, and an abrupt or unsatisfying ending, though some still enjoy it as an apocalyptic thriller.
Stephen King.Cell became a 2016 film with John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson; King published the novel a decade earlier, at the height of flip-phone ubiquity.
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Pet Sematary
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A doctor moves his family to a Maine town where the local pet cemetery sits beside something older, and grief becomes a door that should stay shut.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Cell for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy apocalyptic horror that moves from sudden chaos into a father's long, tense journey. Be warned that some readers find the middle uneven, the supporting characters thin, and the ending abrupt.
- What is Cell like?
- A jittery, blood-soaked opening gives way to a grim road journey, with King's plain voice and a steady hum of dread. Feels like dread, unease and curiosity. About society, family and madness.
- What should I read after Cell?
- If you liked Cell, try Red Dragon (Thomas Harris), The 5th wave (The 5th Wave #1) (Richard Yancey) and Hidden Pictures (Jason Rekulak).
A taste of the feed
What makes a place a home is who you come back to.
Graham returned to the table. He was afraid that this was how he would remember the end of Sugarloaf Key-ice melting in two tea glasses and paper napkins fluttering off the redwood table in the breeze and Molly and Willy far down the beach.
Red Dragon · Thomas Harris
When the world shrinks, the memory of a face can feel like an orbit.
The stars seem a lot closer now. Closer than the three hundred trillion miles that separate us. Close enough to touch, for me to touch them, for them to touch me. They’re as close to me as his breath had been.
The 5th wave (The 5th Wave #1) · Richard Yancey
The difference between knowing you're watched and proving it.
It’s very weird, standing still for five minutes, blindfolded, in a perfectly silent room, knowing that guys might be looking at your boobs or your butt or whatever. There were no sounds or clues to help me guess what was happening. But I definitely felt them watching. I raised and lowered my hand several times, and the five minutes seemed to last an hour. After we finished, Susan asked me to repeat the experiment, and we did it all over again. Then she asked me to repeat the experiment a third time! And when she finally pulled off the blindfold, all the guys stood up and started clapping, like I’d just won an Academy Award.
Hidden Pictures · Jason Rekulak
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