Horrorstör

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Horror / Hendrix, Grady.	4-week checkout	Due 05-12-2024

After strange things start happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland, three employees volunteer to work an overnight shift to investigate, but what they discover is more horrifying than they could have imagined.

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Very Clever submitted by sara on July 11, 2015, 9:13am If the cover reminds you of the Ikea catalog...there's a reason. This book is formatted like an Ikea catalog and the story is set in an Ikea-like store. The story itself isn't great, but the illustrations, layout, are new and different and the book is worth reading just for that alone.

On one hand... submitted by nashjeff on June 17, 2016, 2:31pm Horrorstör is a horror novel where the sum of its parts do not combine into a satisfying whole. The packaging and the premise are innovative, though. Imagine this: a retail environment resembling an all-too-familiar Swedish economy furniture warehouse chain that is transformed during closing hours (or is it?), only to reform back into its innocuous-if-not-quirky self every morning.

What Hendrix does best in writing this novel is setting the scene - we first meet our protagonist, Amy, a reluctant but able retail employee, as she is evading her supervisor, Basil. She's called back for a meeting worried she is on the chopping block only to discover that she is going to stay overnight to discover exactly who- or what- is leaving behind furniture and rooms in messiness. The Orsk showroom throughout the book is described in impeccable detail, hinting at the author's research into IKEA's retail operation. The pacing of the novel is also well-done. A reader is left to wonder what exactly is going to happen until the characters and setting are confronted about half of the way in, and it's a fast read from there on out.

Where Hendrix stumbles is more the actual unfolding of the story. The suspension of disbelief is high, higher, highest. Some of the humor is crude, body-fluids-based. The characters feel a bit shallow.

What exactly is Hendrix aiming to say in writing this story? After having read it, I would have to guess that it has something to say on wage slavery, retail employment, its relationship to the concept of the panopticon-prison, and the mind bending effects therein. Horrorstör has something new to offer horror fans, but maybe not anybody else.

Interesting concept submitted by mrajraspn08 on July 8, 2017, 4:19pm Horror-comedy isn't quite my cup of tea, but this one is different enough that it's still worth a read.

Uneven submitted by emjane on June 14, 2021, 5:51pm Clever concept, great design. I really enjoyed the setup, but as soon as we got further into the horror and mysteries of the world, my interest dropped off. A quick read, still worth getting to the end.