Horrorstör

Grady Hendrix, the author of Horrorstör, is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. The books I have read thus far, We Sold Our Souls, and now Horrorstör are a combination of the ridiculous, the scary, a hell of a lot of fun.

As someone who worked retail in and outside of IKEA, I felt this book on a deeply visceral level. I feel like Hendrix wrote this for my poor bedraggled retail battered soul. And, even though IKEA as a company is better than others, it can get a bit Stepford Wives in upper management. IKEA has inane terms and culture; there is constant upselling and forced smiles and a vast rat-maze-like store trying to funnel you as much as possible. If you have been told that your presentation is not IKEA, you don't have that coworker attitude; your feet hurt constantly, you have been called names by customers, yelled at for policies, and must do it all again with a smile, this story is for you. I think I am channeling some inner past trauma here.

“The more Amy struggled, the faster she sank. Every month she shuffled around less and less money to cover the same number of bills. The hamster wheel kept spinning and spinning and spinning. Sometimes she wanted to let go and find out exactly how far she'd fall if she just stopped fighting. She didn't expect life to be fair, but did it have to be so relentless?”
― Grady Hendrix, Horrorstör

The book is set up as an IKEA catalog, same size, and same general heft. Every few chapters, there is an advertisement for a piece of furniture that is bound to make your life better and more ORSK. ORSK being the fictional lifestyle and furniture company that is a direct knock off of IKEA and the setting for the much of the story. Amy, the main protagonist, is a struggling 20+ associate that is on the fetid hamster wheel of life. The harder she struggles, the further she gets behind. Amy is about to lose her home due to late rent and is feeling the desperation of not having anywhere to go. Plus, she feels her boss Basil (I have never read a more perfect name for a character) is about to fire her for not being ORSK enough. Amy has put in her transfer, all she has to do is stay away from Basil for the next three days, and she is free of this ORSK store. One problem though, Basil would like to do some special one on one coaching. This is usually shorthand for firing. But, instead of firing Basil as an offer: stay overnight and patrol the store. See what is going on, stop whoever is shitting on the couches at night, and vandalizing the bathrooms. In exchange, Basil will grant her transfer request and give her 200 dollars cash. She thinks that this might save her, but things get a whole lot more complicated overnight and chockful of horrors instead.

“Here was the other option: the tranquilizing chair. It was always waiting for her. It always wanted her back. It always wanted her to quit again, to sit down and never get back up. In the end, Amy thought, everything always comes down to those two choices: stay down or stand up.”
― Grady Hendrix, Horrorstör

ORSK is described as a beautiful piece of fruit with worms inside. We occasionally see a colossal rat scurrying about. Or, there is a general feeling of unease when you walk the beautifully lit and European-esque halls lined with furniture. Could it be that this building this built on the ruins of an insane asylum with a mad doctor who tortured and killed his patients? It sounds like a crazy plot jump, but trust me, Hendrix makes it work.

“I know this is your religion, but for me, it's just a job.”
― Grady Hendrix, Horrorstör

I loved this book, as I said, Hendrix is becoming one of my favorites. It is a perfect mix of horror, current events, with just the right touch of the insane to keep me turning page after page. Check it out, and next time you are at IKEA, remember this book.

This is a pretty enjoyable book. It's very different from anything I've read before, though, so if you often read (or watch) contemporary horror, this review probably won't give you much useful info.

The presentation is great. I listened to the audiobook (via my library's Hoopla service, which is a great way to venture outside of my usual genres with no risk), but I also bought the ebook because it was on sale. It has illustrations in the form of maps and catalog descriptions for some of the furniture items and (once the plot gets rolling) torture devices. In the audiobook, the brief catalog and employee manual parts are narrated by Bronson Pinchot, who did a great job of making even ordinary descriptions sound creepy; the main audiobook narrator, Tai Simmons, was new to me, and I really loved her performance. I'll definitely be seeking her out again.

Overall, this book feels like the author had a clever idea and worked really hard to bring it to life, and he mostly succeeded, in my opinion. This book covers a lot of the unsettling qualities that IKEA has in reality; the maze-like structure is a recurring theme. Even the proprietary Allen-wrench-like things make an important appearance.

The characterizations are especially good. I don't believe I've read a book with a PoV character quite like Amy. She's young and misanthropic, she does not want to be working in retail, and she doesn't know how she's ever going to get ahead in life. She doesn't really solve any of those problems, either, although she does find a purpose. She's not sexualized in any way; in fact, her sexual orientation never comes up, and she has no romance plot. I really appreciated that neither Amy nor any of the other characters face the threat of sexual violence at any point in this book.

There are two other interesting female characters, too, who start out as stock characters but gain some depth over the course of the story. I did not really like or sympathize with the way Amy saw them. I'd like to be seen the way people see Ruth Anne, and I didn't like Amy's belief that Trinity was an airhead rebelling against her family, which especially grated with me when it was hinted that Trinity was bisexual. But I didn't feel the author was asking me to agree with Amy's dark view of the world. She also had nasty thoughts about Basil, comparing him to Steve Urkel, which seemed a little racist to me. But the way Basil was actually written most reminded me of Dwight from The Office (with a love for Doctor Who instead of BSG), although he's definitely also an original character. Matt was the least interesting character, a bland young hetero white guy, but it's much more common for a mainstream story to make someone like him a PoV character. I was glad he did not feature too prominently in this book.

I noticed a handful of PoV errors which a good editor should have caught; Amy is the only PoV character, but sometimes the reader is told how someone else is feeling. I also noticed epithets when Amy was alone with Ruth Anne or Trinity, because of the difficulty of not repeating pronouns & names when both characters are of the same gender. But these are very minor complaints.

I'm very wimpy about horror, although I think I'm slowly wearing down my defenses. But nothing in this book actually scared me. The plot was definitely creepy, but it also didn't feel totally real to me. But it developed slowly, and I don't want to spoil the mystery by talking about it too explicitly in my review. It is supernatural, though. There's some mild body horror, but nothing too disturbing. The book is more action-oriented, really, despite the title. I also didn't find anything laugh-out-loud funny, but I'm not sure if the author was going for comedy or not.

The ending really impressed me, and it made me a little emotional, too. I would read this author again. Perhaps my highest praise is that I know I'll be thinking about this book from now on, every time I'm in a big-box store.