Horrorstör

Horrorstör

by Grady Hendrix

Blurb:

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 is designed to retain its luster and natural appearance for a lifetime of use. Pleasingly proportioned with generous French flaps and a softcover binding, Horrorstör delivers the psychological terror you need in the elegant package you deserve.

My Reaction:

This was my first time reading anything by this author, and it was a shared read-aloud with Donald.  I happened across it on Goodreads; the idea of a horror story set in an IKEA was too intriguing to pass up.  Since Donald is Swedish, I thought he might be interested, too.  

I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I guess I was picturing very mild, even goofy horror.  Something like a slightly more adult version of Scooby-Doo, maybe.  It started out kind of like that, but then it turned into more traditional horror.  Unfortunately, that part of the novel wasn't really to my taste. 

There is one genuinely creepy scene where people are trying to navigate the empty store and simply can't find their way around.  That's my kind of horror.  After that, when the scary stuff is actually there in the flesh and starts inflicting torture and blathering on and on, I basically lost interest and just wanted it to be over.  On a positive note, it did get a tiny bit better again at the very end.   

The catalog format is clever, and I did like the humorous IKEA references.  I've never worked retail, but I can see how the book is tailored for those who have or do.  Still, I think suggesting (even in jest) that working retail is akin to being imprisoned and tormented is extremely silly, to put it mildly.  

I feel the novel as a whole lacked polish.  There are major plot points that are never fully explained (such as why the police couldn't find the store for so long), and it lagged a lot in the middle (again, the horror-heavy part).  Still, I'm intrigued by the blurbs/titles of some of the author's other books, so I'll probably try another.