Horrorstör
Ratings41
Average rating3.6
Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland, Ohio. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring bookshelves, shattered Glans water goblets, and smashed Liripip wardrobes. Sales are down, security cameras reveal nothing, and store managers are panicking.
To unravel the mystery, three employees volunteer to work a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn shift. In the dead of the night, they’ll patrol the empty showroom floor, investigate strange sights and sounds, and encounter horrors that defy the imagination.
A traditional haunted house story in a thoroughly contemporary setting, Horrorstör comes packaged in the form of a glossy mail order catalog, complete with product illustrations, a home delivery order form, and a map of Orsk’s labyrinthine showroom. It’s “a treat for fans of The Evil Dead or Zombieland, complete with affordable solutions for better living.”—Kirkus Reviews.
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This was pretty good. It read really quick and I definitely wanted to know what happened. It was a bit much at parts, but not bad. I think the idea was more interesting than the execution though. I really like how the epilogue ended.
Having heard so many people describe trips to Ikea as their idea of a nightmare, making an Ikea like store the setting for a cosmic horror novel really should have been done earlier. However, Grady Hendrix here has nailed the topic. A dark wit pervades everything here, from the tongue in cheek adverts for flat-pack furniture that gradually evolve into different items through the book, the references for how easy it is to get lost in these giant warehouses with a guided path through the store, the wonderfully inane corporate sloganeering and even the more direct references to its obvious inspiration in Ikea.
Hendrix's writing style is easy to digest, making this a nice easy read. The plot plays with tropes (the shop was built on the site of an ancient evil etc), the characters are likeable with good understandable motivations. Yes, the plot is a bit silly at times, but the tongue is firmly in cheek which all lends to the dark wit of the book. All in all an excellent read and a nice break from a lot of more meaty stuff I have been reading recently.
2.5 ⭐️
Okay, so I like Grady Hendrix and I plan on reading more from him, however this one fell flat for me. I have noticed this book a few times at my local book
Store and kept skipping over it. I was on audible and saw that it was included with my membership so
I figured it a win-win. I was disappointed but happy that I didn't waste my credit. I honestly would give it a 2.5 if I could. It's just not my cup of tea. The characters were flat. I didn't particularly like any of them. The story was odd and would have worked better as a movie imo. I was bored.
I couldn't wait for it to be finished. I will continue to read Grady Hendrix and hope the others aren't similar to this experience.
