Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
Review by Angie Andre
I have lived in the hell many of you know as retail for over 20 years. I appreciated the craziness, impossible expectations, prison like mentality, always selling, selling, selling. Horrorstör is a retail nightmare for its employees. This knock off Ikea superstore in Ohio is a strange place to work. Unexplainable things happen. Sales are low and management wants to know why. Three employees decide to stay overnight and figure out what is happening when the lights go off at night. This is where Hendrix lost me.
If you like a parody with humorous horror then you will enjoy Horrorstör. Classical horror happenings like hands grabbing, people being pulled into the walls, torture devices, water rising all over the place, but without the scariness I was hoping for. I know those things are all pretty scary but in the context of the silliness of the store, Orsk, it didn’t work. The characters are likable but I wasn’t invested in them enough to care what happened to them.
I was interested enough to finish the book and see how it ended. Two things saved this book for me. First was the ending, I liked it. Second was the format of the book. It looks just like an Ikea catalog complete with an order form, coupons, and a helpful map of the store.
Horrorstör fits many of the 50th anniversary book challenge categories, including books with buildings as characters!
Check availability on Horrorstör now!
About the reviewer: Angie is a recovered retail manager that appreciates the horror of sales. Saved from the life merchandising she now enjoys her time as the Children’s Librarian for TTL. When not working Angie loves to knit and snuggle with her puppies.
