This is the first collections of short works and novella's of Stephen King's I have read and I really enjoyed it. There are four different stories, each with their own strengths.

1. Mr. Carrigan's Phone
The first story is about a boy of ten who forms a relationship with an old man, Mr. Carrigan. It is well written, as one might expect from Stephen King, and just like other King stories has interesting characters. Once the plot of the story really begins it became a tad predictable, I knew almost exactly what was going to happen with the phone, the calls to Mr. Harrigan after his death, the outcome of the main characters enemies etc. This, however, is not a slight on the story at all, it remained interesting and mysterious, although, it was never "spooky".. at all. The ending was a bit bland and somewhat abrupt as well as I thought the main character lacked repercussions for his actions, he delved into a world he was unfamiliar with and just kind of closed that door when he wanted. I'd have thought from previous stories, many by Stephen King himself, that once you invite entities of the paranormal into your life and knowingly use them to do harm upon others that getting rid of said entities and closing off that doorway would not be so easy as it was in this story. Could have done with another few pages.
I did get that Stephen King has questions and concerns about technology in this story though and its not often that a mobile phone is the apparatus in which ghostly occurrences and summoning are channelled.

2. The Life of Chuck
This one is split into three parts, telling the story of a man named Chuck but in reverse order. Starting with his death, moving onto his adult years in act two and then his younger self in act three.
Act one was a little bizarre and I loved the concept of an actual world with lives and stars in Chuck's imagination dying in darkness when he died on his death bed. It hit me with many questions and was appropriately dark for Stephen King.
The second act was wholesome as Chuck dances with a woman to a buskers music very sporadically. It felt like a happy musical moment in a comedy film or something, loved it.
The third act is chuck when he is younger and thinks there is a haunted room in his grandparents house. He eventually visits this room and, upon leaving, experiences a ghostly apparition of his own death at thirty-nine. I thought this was a spooky moment and if I'd witnessed such an apparition I'd probably be thinking about it for the rest of my life. However, chuck handles it very well and has quite a positive attitude, ending the story with a sort of "death comes to all of us but we just have to get on with it and live" sort of mentality.
I liked how positive and somewhat uplifting this whole story was (as well as dark and a little spooky in places), and the underlined theme of the "multitudes" within all of us.

3. If It Bleeds
The titular story is one that any Stephen King fan will look forward to and be very familiar with, for lack of a better term, the creature-feature. The story follows a private detective who investigates a news reporter and discovers that he is in fact a shape shifting creature, that feeds on the misery and anguish of people.
The story develops the main character very well, we see what her relationship with her mother is like and how this formed her as a person, her work colleagues and friends, and she has a distinct personality which is displayed through the writing. I liked the main character so much that when I got to the end of the whole book and saw that she is in four other Stephen King books I instantly added them to my wishlist!
The main character is likeable and the story is engaging, the pacing is good throughout as well, I couldn't stop reading this one. Everything about it felt finely tuned and polished. I can see why the book is titled after this particular story.

4. Rat
I can easily say I enjoyed this one the least. "Rat" is one of those stories about someone who makes a deal with the devil, the unique element of this one being that the devil being made a deal with is a rat - literally.
It's a short story of about fifty pages or a little more, so it's easy to read in a couple sittings, even one.
I just felt like this one built up to something and then finished on a flat note. You have this character who desperately wants to finish writing his novel (top Stephen King trope, thumbs up for that), so he makes this unethical life-and-death deal to successfully finish it and basically gets what he wanted; all-be-it with some technicalities in the outcome. But, nothing is really challenged or followed up on in a satisfying or unique way and so it feels unfinished. A disappointing way to finish this works as the other three stories are mostly strong and unique in THEIR own ways.

It's a semi-mixed bag if works. Mostly very strong with "The Life of Chuck" and "If It Bleeds" being vastly different in theme and structure but both very well written. "Mr. Carrigan's Phone" is decent, not amazing but easy to read and showing a sweet relationship building between two characters, and then finally "Rat" is also easy to read but with an underwhelming end and no real consequence for the main character (also like Mr. Carrigan's phone in terms of the lack of consequence).
It's definitely worth a read in spite of the flaws though as all of the stories, being Stephen King, are so well written and full of realised characters.