Horrorstör

I've wanted to read Horrorst??r since mid-2019, but at the time it wasn't available at the library and I just really was not interested in the attached price tag. Eventually, I forgot all about it... until someone on my goodreads feed listened to the audiobook and I decided to check the library again, reminded of how much I'd wanted to read this a couple years ago. And, hey, they had it! So I put it on hold, and when it became available I jumped at the opportunity.

I was excited to finally get my hands on this book, and I planned to devour the entire thing in two sittings or less!



But I didn't.

In fact, because the library's only copy was in ebook form - which does not have zoom-enabled pictures - the initial experience on my phone was about like trying to read the bottom line of an eye chart without my glasses. (“Those amorphous shapes bleeding together at the edges are letters? Oh, dear...”) The main appeal of the book - its unique imagery - was rendered completely useless. Major bummer, but not a dealbreaker. After all, I was able to load the Libby in-browser app on my laptop and actually read the writing on images that way. Well, except the one image with fake handwriting font on it. What were they thinking?!

Trouble is: that was more effort - and eyestrain - than I wanted to have to expend. I don't enjoy reading from my computer much, I was already annoyed by the inconvenience, and on top of all that the book wasn't what I expected. At all.

What I had anticipated was a horror story told in a unique way, laid out solely through faux catalogue images and employee handbook pages etc. What this actually contains, however, is a bunch of standard chapters in prose interspersed with a select few images of the type that drew me to this book in the first place. I was disappointed from the very beginning, and I'm certain that helped colour my initial opinion a bit and added to just how easily annoyed I was during the reading process - especially by what a trope-fest of a wannabe B-movie horror this is.

But, y'know, I can't say I wasn't entertained. The beginning is dreadfully slow and there are so many issues - such as every character having to be an actual idiot at all times for the story to work as presented - but it's not terrible. Hell, it's basically exactly what I just said: a wannabe B-movie horror flick.

I like campy horror. Frankly, some of my favourite horror movies are Devour, the remake of My Bloody Valentine, House of Wax, Shaun of the Dead (which lowkey feels like the vibe Horrorst??r wants to achieve), and the remake of Dawn of the Dead. I like it campy and ridiculous with blood spattered everywhere while insufferable people are, well, insufferable to each other so I can secretly cheer for their death while hoping the one or two tolerable characters make it to the end credits. And frankly, if Horrorst??r were a movie, it'd probably be an honourable mention right below my list of faves... because I'm far more forgiving of ridiculously convenient plot points, nonsensical tropes, tired cliches, and unlikable characters when I can turn my brain off a bit and just stare cathartically at the screen to enjoy the story for what it is. I can't do that with books, try as I might, so we end up with situations like this where the looming shadow of everything I wanted this book to be crashes down upon everything it is and makes me feel a lot more conflicted about how to rate it.

And, wow, but was I ever conflicted. Through the reading process, I must have cycled through every conceivable star and half-star-rounded-up (and half-star-rounded-down) rating possible between 0 and 4. I never quite knew what to make of this book, and the more I fell into the pattern of reading on my laptop, the more distanced I became from the initial agitation.

That said, there's quite a lot of reasons to be annoyed by the story itself. The first few chapters are boring and slow, only one character - with a minor role, at that - is even halfway likeable, and the horror premise doesn't even have anything to do with the store itself. This isn't some witty, fun, fake-IKEA-themed haunting story; it's an overused semi-spooky plot that's been done to death, pasted atop the setting of a fake IKEA. Early on in the book, every single bit of spookiness would suggest the paranormal horror originates from the store itself. Even the satirical images suggest that whatever's happening is related to ORSK (the fake IKEA brand) specifically. But nope. Any home, hotel, or whatever other building could have been put in ORSK's place, and literally nothing would have changed other than the scenery and potential for fake-outs. (The epilogue confirms this, as yet another DIY furniture store is built over the ruins of the failed ORSK and the haunting emerges again. Aka: obligatory sequel bait, were this a movie.)

It doesn't help that I wanted to feed most of the characters to ghosts because they were so annoying or unlikable. They're the standard motley crew of unlikely allies you find in every ensemble-cast horror ever, but just for funsies let's assess them anyway:

Amy - She's the main character, and a very unpleasant one at that. She's fiercely judgmental of other people for no good reason and believes herself to be above actually doing her job properly because it's retail. She grew up in a trailer park and is desperate to make something better of her life. Or so she thinks. But for someone so desperate to make life better, she sure does the bare minimum effort required to even avoid being fired. Amy deserves to be fed to a ghost - and that's been true since the second chapter at latest - but the ghosts do not deserve to be fed such noxious substances. No, not even the evil ghosts. She'd give them terrible indigestion and then they'd just be cranky and everyone would suffer.

Basil - He's a black guy initially described as “a taller Urkel from Family Matters” - tall, lanky, geeky enough to have a Doctor Who ringtone. (Not that I'm judging; my ringtone is the X-Files theme.) He's anal about following the demeaning store policies and he's obsessed with his job to the point he seems like a jerk often... but actually he's a decent, caring guy once you get to know him. Oh, and Basil grew up in East Cleveland and is raising his little sister all by himself, because... yay stereotypes? He's actually the single most intelligent character in this book, though. Basil needs to chill out to an extreme, but he does not deserve to be fed to a ghost.

Trinity - She's a Korean girl - or, rather, we know her parents are Korean; for all we know, she could be adopted - with no age given who “acts like a Japanese schoolgirl” to manipulate men into doing her bidding. She's tattooed and pierced using her allegedly strict, Christian parents' money despite their disapproval, because apparently they're kind enough not to partake in financial abuse. With a glam-punk aesthetic, she has so much potential to be a badass, but she just ends up being a weirdly childlike and obnoxious character, almost as intolerable as Amy. She believes in ghosts and aspires to be a televised paranormal investigator. Trinity probably doesn't deserve to be fed to a ghost, but should be anyway just to get rid of her overwhelming, highly immature energy.

Matt - He's a dude of indeterminate age and build - though he's confirmed able to lift at least fifty pounds, per his job description - with enough of a beard that food crumbs get stuck in it when he's eating takeout. He's a believer in science and skeptic of ghosts, but manipulative enough to lie about his beliefs to get in ladies' pants. Matt often teeters on the fine line between lovestruck fool who's kinda alright and Nice Guy(???) who's a jerk, balancing with all the skill of a tightrope walker. He probably deserves to be fed to the ghosts of women who were gaslighted by their partners.

Ruth Anne - She's the oldest character: a forty-seven-year-old woman with no spouse or kids, who's kind and optimistic and goes out of her way to look on the bright side of life. She uses the application of Blistex lip balm as a self-soothing gesture and never quite overcame her devastating fear of the dark from childhood. Did I mention she's an absolute beacon of positivity and kindness? Because she is - almost to a fault. Ruth Anne is perhaps the only character possessing logic and/or reasoning skills, though she doesn't always use them, and her vaguely Southern speech patterns are fun to read. She absolutely does not deserve the utter bullshit thrown her way - or to be fed to ghosts.

Carl - He's the human embodiment of an Among Us meme who is hiding out in the store because he's currently homeless. Super sus. Messy divorce, custody battle... and still wears a wedding ring? I know who I'm voting out this round! Saying that isn't a spoiler, by the way; none of the other characters are smart enough to notice that detail despite the ring being mentioned multiple times. Y'know, and he just ends up being a vessel for a ghost to possess and force to commit suicide anyway, so it doesn't matter. He may deserve to be thrown out the airlock, but he doesn't quite earn the role of Ghost Chow.



These are the people we're supposed to care about, and it... really doesn't work to create those ‘oh no, someone's in peril!' emotions in most of the horror-centric scenes. (Which, by the way, are more akin to things from a PG-13 version of the Saw franchise than what you'd expect from a haunting. Heavy on the gross-out factor and the body horror, so be careful if that isn't your thing.) Seeing everything through the eyes of Miss Super Judgey - I mean, Amy - certainly didn't help to create empathy for the others. Except Ruth Anne. She's golden.

Yet, as I already said, I do quite like many movies which have the same dynamic. So I spent a lot of time conflicted on how to rate this book. How do I express that I'm disappointed it didn't live up to my expectations, annoyed by its flaws, but also entertained by the end product all the same?

And that's how it hit me: the realization that the majority of my gripes with Horrorst??r are the result of being in the written medium, trapped within the POV of a single loathsome character, limited to what she perceives as horrifying or benign. The tired, old cliches are overdone but not something I particularly hate in other mediums. Loathsome characters aren't so bad in movies or video games, where there's often a chance to escape from them for a while by focusing on others - or to let them get mauled to death by monsters and return to the crew with a shrug and a “hey, I tried to save them, don't blame me for coming back alone.” Unique settings with overdone plots can be fun and inviting, in certain contexts.

So, I think perhaps the biggest thing holding me back from absolutely loving Horrorst??r as the campy, sometimes witty, horror-comedy-satire romp that it is... is the medium itself. Were this a movie, I'd have fast forwarded a bit in the beginning then stuck around through the remaining 85% with popcorn and a Sprite, yelling in good fun at the idiots on screen behaving with no sense of self-preservation or logic. Were this an interactive, story-driven game in the vein of Until Dawn, I'd have enjoyed every single moment of it while gleefully, deliberately piloting Amy to her death in the first playthrough just to see how quickly the game would let me get rid of her annoying presence. Likewise, I'd savour every moment of piloting Ruth Ann, for whom I would dutifully reload a save and sacrifice hours of gameplay just to undo a failed quick time event and bring her back from death.

No, seriously, Until Dawn is one of my favourite gaming experiences: basically a cliche horror movie filled to the brim with tropes, vaguely problematic elements, and quite a few unlikable characters - all told through motion-captured graphics with occasional moments where you have to interact, make choices, pilot characters down winding paths, etc. to see how many of the characters survive and how many die with you in control. I would absolutely love to see this book put into such a medium. It just feels so much more suited for an interactive movie format than a book. Even if nothing about the plot or characterization changed at all, I would play it until my hands ached and then play it a little more just to explore deeper into the labyrinth that is ORSK after business hours. The clever item cards from the book could be used as collectible lore or loading screens, even. As a game, it could be as truly suspenseful and disorienting as I think the written version was attempting.

It's this line of thinking which led me to realize that, for all the criticisms I had while reading and all my gripes about missed potential, I didn't dislike Horrorst??r at all. I wanted it to be something different, but if I look past that I can admit it wasn't unenjoyable or bad. It was an average paranormal-horror experience with a veneer of satire about the soul-sucking nature of retail work plastered atop.

So, sure, maybe it's not revolutionarily untraditional in style. Maybe it's not what I expected. And maybe the excess focus on body horror and gross-factor left me feeling far from scared. But I still liked at least half of the experience. And the psychological horror in one chapter with regards to accepting one's place in the capitalist cycle of life and being destined to amount to nothing was actually a little chilling, especially when the brainwashing kicked in and it was accepted as truth.

The writing itself is vaguely juvenile and does more telling than showing, but it's structurally sound and isn't obnoxious to read. The author's attempts at situational humour didn't land well for me in most places and I found myself annoyed at a lot of the banter - as well as the ridiculous way The Warden spoke - but maybe that's just a side effect of not particularly caring about most of the characters. Depression is portrayed rather well at one point in the book and for the most part the slightly problematic elements - such as minor, casual racism - seem to come from the POV character's thoughts and not the author's true beliefs. After all, there's a moment where Amy stops to realize that she shouldn't be trying to compete against Basil's tragic backstory with her own, so I think the author himself knows what he's doing and is choosing to show us one of Amy's flaws along with her moments of self-realization. (Though I will say: this is so not the right tone of book to try tackling things like those, if that's the case.)

I'm rambling. Per usual, that means I'm conflicted and feel a need to over-explain my thoughts. So I'll digress, because my eyes are still dry and blurry from having to read this on my laptop.

Overall: I enjoyed Horrorst??r enough to deem it an average book. It wasn't the wildly unique, amazing thing that I wanted it to be. The paranormal aspect wasn't even truly unique to the fake IKEA, which I believe defeats half the purpose of the setting's appeal. It was written with decent competence, but not great literature. And it not only belongs on a different type of medium, but often reads as if it's a novelized version of a movie.

I don't regret reading this, though the first few chapters had me thinking that I would DNF. (So. Fucking. Boring. At first.) And I do have some delightfully creepy mental imagery to mull over from the setting, despite having never been in an IKEA in my life because they don't exist in my area.



So... 3 stars. Congratulations, Horrorst??r; you managed to disappoint me and still come out with an “I liked it” rating.

But I'm still sending you to employee partner coaching to work on your skillset, so you can be the Horror In A Fake IKEA Store representative that I know you're capable of becoming.

This was a lot of fun to read. A traditional haunted house type story, with the added layer of a sardonic commentary on modern consumerism, the relationship people have with their careers, and big-box retailing. I like shopping at Ikea but this sendup of it was delightful as well.

Bonus points for the layout, as well, with the chapter headings and cover designed to look like a product catalogue.

Sometimes a horror story is just the thing. This one is set in a furniture megastore called Orsk, a thinly veiled version of IKEA. There's plently of sort-of-Swedish brand names of various products, a twisting maze store layout, and references to notoriously problematic assembly instructions. The stores employees have been experiencing weirdly ruined merchandise and spotted some strange characters in the store. This leads one floor manager to gather a few employees for an after hours late shift to try to figure out what's going on. Things go rapidly downhill from there. I loved the setting and the story zips along. It begins with a dark sense of humor and then gets into some typical horror stuff. Fun ride.

(Also of some amusement is that my 10-year-old daughter was very interested to hear my summary of the story. I wonder about that one.)