Goodreads Choice Awards Book Club discussion

Voted by members as our additional read for the Horror category.



If It Bleeds by Stephen King

If it Bleeds is a collection of four new novellas —Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Life of Chuck, Rat, and the title story If It Bleeds— each pulling readers into intriguing and frightening places.

A collection of four uniquely wonderful long stories, including a stand-alone sequel to The Outsider.

News people have a saying: 'If it bleeds, it leads'. And a bomb at Albert Macready Middle School is guaranteed to lead any bulletin.

Holly Gibney of the Finders Keepers detective agency is working on the case of a missing dog - and on her own need to be more assertive - when she sees the footage on TV. But when she tunes in again, to the late-night report, she realizes there is something not quite right about the correspondent who was first on the scene. So begins 'If It Bleeds' , a stand-alone sequel to The Outsider featuring the incomparable Holly on her first solo case.

Dancing alongside are three more long stories - 'Mr Harrigan's Phone', 'The Life of Chuck' and 'Rat' .

The novella is a form King has returned to over and over again in the course of his amazing career, and many have been made into iconic films, If It Bleeds is a uniquely satisfying collection of longer short fiction by an incomparably gifted writer.

I am excited about this one. I have a hold at the library, but I might use an audible credit. I am out of credits so I have to wait a few days until I get a new one.
I have had really good luck liking his short stories on audible.
The narrator he uses regularly is awesome.

I'm not usually a fan of short stories, but I'm excited to read this one too. I love Holly Gibney. :)

I was actually able to borrow this one! I'm not a huge Stephen King fan, but I do love novellas. This will be my first book of the new year! Can't wait to hear what you all think :)

Wow sign me in For Steven King for January 2021’s I f it Bleeds.

I'm almost ready to start this one! :) Hopefully I will finish my current book today and start this one tomorrow.

I'm about halfway through and enjoying the stories so far.

I finished Mr. Harrigan's Phone and The Life of Chuck and am somewhere in the middle of If It Bleeds.

Mr. Harrigan's Phone - I was expecting this to be a full-blown horror story and kept waiting for it, but it never developed into that. It was an interesting, creepy at times story with a quick ending.

The Life of Chuck - Very creative story. I can't say too much about it without giving something away, so a spoiler it is. Please note this is an end of story spoiler: (view spoiler)[ This story has the world within a world that King seems to really like. It reminds me a little bit of his Dark Tower series due to the small world inside a larger world concept. I thought the idea of a world being inside a person and dying when the person dies was really creative and interesting. (hide spoiler)]

If It Bleeds - The Holly Gibney title story. This is best read after The Outsider, which is best read after The Bill Hodges Trilogy, which begins with Mr. Mercedes. We meet Holly in the trilogy and her story continues in The Outsider. There are spoilers in The Outsider for the ending of the trilogy. Some of those spoilers, as well as spoilers for the ending of The Outsider are included in this short story. Just be aware that Holly's story is being continued in this short story. People in this story came into Holly's life in the earlier books and she mentions what happens to some of the people not included in this one. If you don't mind some spoilers, then go ahead and read it. Again, I can't say too much, but I am really enjoying it. It's fun to see where Holly and others ended up after the previous books and I like where he took them so far.

Overall, so far the stories have the paranormal aspect that King is known for, but not too scary for anyone that is not a real fan of horror but still interested in checking it out.

Just finished. Quite enjoyable overall. I think the last one, 'Rat', was my favourite, perhaps because for me it was the most ambiguous.

In some ways I found the title story more satisfying than the novel it sequels--and now I think I really must get round to reading The Bill Hodges Trilogy.

Yes, you should read the trilogy. I really enjoyed it.

I haven't had much reading time the past couple of days. I've made progress with If It Bleeds, but haven't finished it yet. I can't wait to see where it goes. And now I'm looking forward to Rat too. :)

Hi everyone. I’m still in the middle of the first story. Been listening to it on audible so it takes a while. I quite like the story, but so far nothing scary has happened, and it wasn’t what I was expecting from Stephen King.

Michelle wrote: "Hi everyone. I’m still in the middle of the first story. Been listening to it on audible so it takes a while. I quite like the story, but so far nothing scary has happened, and it wasn’t what I was..."

I thought the same thing, Michelle. I was waiting for it.

Hi everyone. I'm listening to the audio version. Enjoying it so far. Many years since I've read Stephen King but his writing style is just as engaging as I remember. I haven't got to the title story yet. Does it matter that I haven't read The Outsider?

I finished this about a week ago, it was alright. I’ve come to terms with not being a Stephen King fan haha. I think I liked Rat and Mr. Harrington’s Phone the most. If It Bleeds lost me, I think that’s just because I never read or watched the Outsiders so I just couldn’t get into it. But I’m glad you’re all enjoying these stories!

I am listening on audio too. I really love this narrator. He does a lot of Stephen King.
I am in the middle of Mr. Harrington's Phone and I love it. This is the type of King that is my favorite.

I think you can easily read The Outsider without reading the Bill Hodges trilogy, but it might be difficult to understand everything that happens in If It Bleeds without reading The Outsider first. Holly references things that happened in that story and this story builds off that one.

Finally made it to The Rat. I'm really enjoying these short stories. They don't feel like typical short stories. They are pretty fleshed out IMO.

I finished this about a week ago. I didn’t think I’d read anything in the Holly trilogy, but Mr. Mercedes is on my read shelf. It must not have made much of an impression, because I don’t remember it!

But on to If It Bleeds : I think King is one of the best writers when it comes to bringing pop culture into a story, and all of these do that to some degree, especially Mr. Harrigan’s Phone.

It didn’t bother me that I hadn’t read any of the other Holly Gibney stories, I don’t mind spoilers and he did a pretty good job with enough backstory I think I got the gist of what she had been through before this story.

The Chuck triptych was kind of meh while I was reading it, but a few days later I found myself thinking about it, so I guess it’s one of his slow burn stories.

And then came Rat. King writing about the writing process is my favorite Stephen King, and this is no exception. I loved Rat!

I just finished the book! I expected it to be horror, but not a disappointing read.
The title story, "If It Bleeds" was relatively hard to get as I have not read any of Holly Gibney novels. It took some time to get the hang of the characters.
Other stories were easy to get into and enjoy. "Harrigan's Phone" was a bit creepy to imagine. :D The story I loved the most was "The life of Chuck" , the concept is stuck with me long after I read it. :)

I love that everyone's different favorites of the four stories.

I finished the book and I really enjoyed all of them. These are my favorite kind of Stephen King stories.
My favorite was Mr. Harrigan's Phone. I thought the characters were very well done.
I also loved The Life of Chuck. I thought it was a mind trip!
Of course the title story was great. It was good to see Holly, Jerome and Pete again. It made me miss Bill Hodges though!
My least favorite was Rat. It was too slow for me and just didn't appeal to me.

I felt similarly, Vicki. The only one I didn't care for was Rat. Though my husband also listened to it and he really liked that one.

I am liking this book so far - just a little behind. I have listened to the first three stories and starting on the final one. Mr. Harrigan's Phone was interesting and I really enjoyed If it Bleeds.

Geoff wrote: "I am liking this book so far - just a little behind. I have listened to the first three stories and starting on the final one. Mr. Harrigan's Phone was interesting and I really enjoyed If it Bleeds."

What did you end up thinking of The Life of Chuck and The Rat?

Kristie wrote: "What did you end up thinking of The Life of Chuck and The Rat?"

I don't think either of those were something to rave about. The Life of Chuck was interesting and The Rat was a little strange.

The Rat was strange, yes. It was my least favorite. I thought The Life of Chuck was an interesting concept.

I think that my favourite was "Mr. Harrigan's Phone," and my least favourite was "the Rat."