Horrorstör

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.

Quirky, creepy without being too creepy, somewhat predictable, but fun concept and I love the typesetting.

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.)

Well that was interesting

I wanted to give this five stars just for being so damn clever, but let's not go overboard. The design of Horrorstor, in the case you have not already heard all about this, is very similar to an Ikea catalog. The store in the novel, here called Orsk, is an Ikea knockoff and the characters in the novel are Orsk employees forced to spend the night in order to investigate weird goings on. Honestly, I loved it. I read it in two days, could not put it down. Is it scary? Yes, in a Goosebumps/Christopher Pike way. There is a little bit of horror for all tastes in this story. Are the characters great, meh. Not so much, but I liked Amy and cared about what happened to her and the rest of the crew. Overall, it's a great read for Halloween and I am already recommending it highly to readers I think will get a kick out of it. Quirk puts out good stuff, and Horrorstor is top of the Orsk line.