I absolutely loved the set-up. The brain-draining corporate retail environment was spectacular. The satire perfectly played. But after all the story of Amy was really nice. A bit direct moral turn by the end of the story but it's still fun read, awesome style, huge success in cinematic description of the Orsk , the place, the characters, the wheel of tedious jops, and even the products of ORSK which I'd LOVE to buy some of them..only the first half of course not the horrible nazi ones by the last half. , Well It's a Retail Catalogue...and it really pushed me to thinking about buying the items.. Mistry, Anupa (October 11, 2014). "Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix: Review". The Star . Retrieved January 29, 2020. I thought all of the characters were well done. Even though they seem one dimensional to start, over the course of their time together, you learn much more about each of them. I personally began to feel quite attached. But a certain action from some characters ruined some of the story for me , The Séance..which can be avoided for more efficient impact of the paranormal activities of the place. I mean it would have been better if the homeless man just turn up right after the twilight lights starts..or any other way that make the place powerful without acting stupid by Trinity and Mat.

For more than a year now, the name Grady Hendrix kept popping up from GR friends, either with a reading, rating, review or recommendation. HORRORSTOR is my virgin dive into the author’s mind. And I will admit, there were a few things I was worried about: Horrorstör” by Grady Hendrix has been a book I’ve been wanting to read for a while. I’ve read a handful of novels by Hendrix and I absolutely love his style of writing, horror, and the hilarious dark humor often found in everything he does. When it comes to Horrorstör, it’s simply put, a good time. Hendrix cleverly sprinkles in nods to well-established vampire lore, and the fact that he's a master at conjuring heady 1990s nostalgia is just the icing on what is his best book yet. Fans of smart horror will sink their teeth into this one.”I enjoyed all the characters, especially Amy, as she was totally relatable. I’ve met countless people working in retail and have known co-workers dealing with everything she does which made it feel so authentic. I had a lot of empathy with her and this made me connect with her character and why she did the things that she did.

Horrorstör is elevated from a typical horror novel because of its setting, which is really quite clever, and the way Grady Hendrix, the author, weaves the store manual into the narrative. There isn’t an IKEA in the country where I live. Like the town whore, I only know it by reputation from what I’ve heard from others. I use that analogy because I heard that (like the town whore) their merchandise is cheap but of low quality. He'll make sure Amy's transfer papers go through if she stays overnight with Basil and a few of her co-workers. What could possibly go wrong? Hendrix’s one-of-a-kind novel is an innovative hybrid of ghost story and satire, at once clever, gruesome, and hilarious.” Twenty-something Amy works at a cheap furniture store called Orsk. She gets roped into doing a dusk-til-dawn shift with her middle-aged co-worker Ruth Anne and highly motivated manager Basil (who’s also younger than she is). They’re on the lookout for whoever’s been wiping the display furniture with poo and scrawling graffiti across the walls after-hours. Also, someone is texting “help” to everyone with a store mobile. But they gotta catch whoever’s doing it soon because corporate’s coming down for an inspection, first thing in the morning!amy is like many poor souls in retail jobs - complacent and unambitious, going through the motions, struggling with student loans, both resenting and needing the work. Orsk was so big it needed a certain number of people on the premises to keep it under control. Three of them weren’t enough. The store was stirring, restless, growing slowly. Emptied of people, Orsk felt dangerous. for the characters , 5 or hardly 6 for the plot , by the ending it can be 6.5 so , it's 7, or here in Goodreads, 3.5 ...I gave it 4 JUST for the creativeness of the novel We finally get to the supernatural disturbances and they’re a joke. I mean, they’re played totally real but they’re just a glob of horror story cliches. It’s the Indian burial ground-type setup, tedious monologues about never getting out and being punished forever and ever. Even the villain in this is tedious! Let me gush about this book to you for like three or five minutes. Give me five, tops! First of all, let me just explain how much fun this book is. Starting with the cover, have you ever seen a more eye catching, hilarious cover?

Much like some countries that require each citizen to do a stint in their army, I feel that everyone should have to do a tour of duty as a retail worker. At this point, I've read a lot of Hendrix's books and I can say without a doubt that this one is my favorite. The novel is a charming testament to friendships and life's imperfections, with dashes of rot and savagery to earn its keep in horror literature....It's a rollercoaster [that] lands as a vampire story concreted in vileness and Southern charm.” The tone starts off funny, and as the story progresses it turns creepy and escalates to, “Holy crap what just happened!” The tone is reflected by the layout of the book, which resembles an IKEA catalog, and which opens each chapter with a new advertisement. Initially the ads are for innocuous, even cheerful pieces of furniture, but the captions become more and more ominous and the furniture weirder and weirder. Wildly inventive…Hendrix delivers both a palm-sweating horror story and a laugh-out-loud satire of retail.”— Esquireurn:lcp:horrorstor0000hend:epub:2b4c8fef-ed38-47d9-ac6d-1070bca048cc Foldoutcount 0 Identifier horrorstor0000hend Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s2jbjqkw4g7 Invoice 1652 Isbn 9788415709756 The ONLY part that wasn't working for me was the 3 or 4 times Hendrix uses rats as his scare/creep factor. I am just not scared of rats. So those parts were just me being all, "Whatever. Chill out, people. They're just rats." But since Hendrix primarily focuses on actually creepy stuff, this didn't end up to be too annoying, and only took me out of the horror of the story once or twice. The humor was also spot on for me. The satirical nature of the entire story, plus the witty banter between the characters, made this an absolute delight from beginning to end.

And the merchandise is not really cheap and of higher quality than you might expect, perhaps even an experience that will last more than 30 seconds. (I'm paraphrasing, of course). I highly recommend this book to every horror reader out there.If this doesn't scare you out,then I don't know what will. Cline, Rob (February 1, 2015). " 'Horrorstor': Novel is crafted to look like catalog". The Gazette . Retrieved January 29, 2020. I love the concept of this book. It is so unique – I’ve never read a book like it and believe I’m unlikely to stumble upon another. I feel it’s pretty much what you would expect from a novel pitched as a horror parody of IKEA. I’m a hoe for that Swedish furniture store and the story fed my home décor-loving heart.The sorts of things people do, the way they act, and the messes they leave for someone else to clean up when they enter stores are really a sight to behold. Dante himself couldn't have come up with a better punishment for past sins than having to deal with the general public on a daily basis for peasant wages. From the awesome graphic illustrations before each chapter and the whole story being around a retail furniture store, this book really hit home with me. I spent over 15 years working in retail electronics (Best Buy) and let me tell you, Hendrix hit the nail right on the head with how everything works behind the scenes. Even with the usual characters you’d find in retail, he did a fantastic job getting everything eerily accurate to what it’s like working in retail and the people/customers you deal with on a daily basis. In the morning, the automated doors don't want to work, and as the day wears on more and more strange things keep cropping up which leads Basil to think there is someone hiding inside the building at night causing mischief. Look, I can’t slam a store I know nothing about. In fact, I think that I might have been a big fan of IKEA – to me, when something is working and doing its job, I really couldn’t care less what it looks like. This is a quality that annoys my wife to no end. Before she bought me a FOSSIL watch as a wedding gift, I used to wear watches that were cheap enough to throw away at the first sign of trouble.