I finally finished Cell!
I tend to agree with both of you, Kelly and Mare. I did enjoy the book, although it definitely wasn't my favorite. It started off strong, and it kept me intrigued for awhile because it seemed so suspenseful; I just keep reading waiting for something really scary to happen. While the whole Gaiten Academy part was really creepy and suspenseful in that way, it seemed to drag on forever for me, and after that, I agree with Kelly, the story seemed to lose a lot of its tension. The Raggedy Man was creepy at first, but after awhile, when he never actually did anything to them, he lost his effect too.
I did enjoy the climax with Ray's whole plan going into effect; that was pretty genius, using the cell phones. And I was glad they didn't kill poor little Jordan, after what happened to Alice and the Head before her and then Ray!
I kind of did want Clay to find his son because, yeah, I'll admit it, I like happy endings, but at the same time, I kind of didn't because it did seem a little unrealistic. But then, it's a story, and in stories, why waste all that narrative on his son if he was never going to see him again? I did like that Johnny ended up being half-a-phoner, or whatever you want to call him, cause that made it less of an unrealisticall y happy ending. As for the ending itself... I loved it and hated it LOL. I hated it because I wanted to find out if using the Pulse again would work! And I loved it because SK is brilliant for leaving it like that and making us all wonder and/or just decide for ourselves. Ahh!!
All in all, it was a decent book, definitely not his best that I've read, but worth the read. Also, like I said before, it was interesting for me to read something current by SK... I've mostly only read his old stuff, which is classic and brilliant, but at times dated. It was cool to read something modern and sci-fi from him.