CELL (Stephen King) - April 30/11

This readable but disappointing book from King almost comes off as a parody of his past work, as what starts out as a routine zombie story morphs into something involving mind-reading, levitation, and other mind tricks that have formed the backbone of so many King books. There are some very exciting stretches here - the explosion at the fair, for example - but King bogs the book down with elements that just aren't terribly interesting. (Did the zombies really need a malevolent leader?) The ambiguous ending is a little frustrating, and in the end, Cell does feel like it's at least 100 pages too long. **1/2 out of ****