It's really difficult to rate a book of short stories, some in this collection were poor and a few were amazing, in the end I've bottled it and averaged out the ratings to give it 3 stars. You can tell this is early work by Stephen King, very rough around the edges but the ideas of a genius are there. It would be interesting if Stephen King was to rewrite these stories now, how much better would they be?

The best of the collection was "The man who loved flowers" it is one of the shortest, but he has got into the head of a madman perfectly. The violence is short and so sudden, blink and you'll miss it.

I'm not afraid to admit it, King has a habit of making mundane things scary, so when I saw I was approaching a story about lawnmowers I put the book down and quickly mowed the lawn, just in case I develop a fear of lawnmowers or even grass, it's possible with these stories.