mr. harrigan’s phone - 4⭐️
the life of chuck - 3 - 3.5 ⭐️
if it bleeds - 5⭐️
rat - 4 ⭐️ 


this collection surprise me in the way that i normally don’t love short stories - especially King’s. 
I am one of the people that enjoys his wide stretching reach of his stories, how he sometimes seems to get a bit too lost in details that shouldn’t be as important overall but make it a King book. 
i enjoy exactly that about his books. 
and i mostly dislike his endings. look the guy can write and has apparently and endless stream of ideas of different -mostly at least slightly horrific - stories. But his endings? most of them could be better, especially for the size of his books. 

which is why i never really love his short stuff - there isn’t all this build up that sucks me in and i enjoy only to be left with a disappointing feeling at the end. 


but either i am in the right mood or i just need to focus on his newest/newer releases because either he learned to write endings better than previously or i just expect less at his endings? 
doesn’t matter what ever it is? it works for me right now and i am absolutely enjoying his stories! 


i would definitely recommend “if it bleeds” if you enjoyed “the outsider” - that is the Holly story in this and it was just as well done if not better as “the outsider” it is just shy under 200 pages - so a relatively quick read. 

i -as King himself since he noted that in his authors note- am a big fan of Holly and really like reading about her and how she is doing. so it was a joy to get an entire story from her point of view and follow her journey along -and made me incredibly excited for the new release “holly” where i will get more than almost 200 pages of her! 


but the other stories in this are well done too. 

i really liked the slight creepy but in some ways relatable factor of the iphone moments in the first story, enjoyed the rather pointed comments in the last one and while i didn’t love the second story - the life of chuck- it was still a good story and if i wouldn’t have read it between the ones that i enjoyed so much more it would have been a great story! 


you can read this like a book, as i did, and just read one story after the other. there is jo connection between the stories at all and they are different enough from each other that it’s no problem to go from one to the next and enjoy them all. 

or you can read it in individual story segments when you want a quicker read between something else. 


read which ever story you want in which ever order you want. 
doesn’t matter which this collection.