I’ve been enjoying Stephen King’s latest book, “If it Bleeds”. I’m listening to the audiobook on during my commute to and from work. Since I was working from home when the book was released, I’m a little behind with this one. I finished the first two stories and I’m on the third now.

The first story was interesting – it’s about an iPhone – the old 1st-Gen version that was a little buggy.

The second story was just plain irritating. The story might have been much better if King hadn’t decided to do the entire thing BACKWARDS. That’s right, it goes from Act 3 to Act 1, telling the last part of the story first, then the middle, and finally the beginning. It’s an end-of-the-world story, so I started out pretty confused and not knowing what the heck anything was he was explaining until somewhere in the second act, when I fully realized everything was being told in reverse. So by the end of the third act I realized more and more clearly what’s going on, but I had to re-assemble things in the correct order in my head just to put some sense to it. It ended up being just a bit too confusing for me to enjoy and appreciate the story much, so I’m thinking about re-reading that one, maybe in actual book form this time instead of as an audiobook, but reading it in the correct “act order”. I’m curious if this will reveal some hidden flaws in the story, or if King actually wrote the story in the correct order, then just decided to publish it backwards. I don’t think he’s ever done that before. I’m not sure what the point was.

Right now I’m in the middle of the third story, which is the book’s actual title, “If it Bleeds”. It’s the longest story in the book and I’m really liking it. It connects the 3-book Mr. Mercedes series, The Outsider, and this story together, all intertwined. The main character is Holly Gibney, who was in all of those books. I’m looking forward to the last story too, which is “Rat”. I think the creepy cover design for the book is a clue to that story. We’ll see.