Book Review – Horrorstör

Hello hello and welcome or welcome back to my little bookish corner of the internet. Today I’m sharing my review of Horrorstör.

Synopsis
Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring wardrobes, shattered Brooka glassware, and vandalized Liripip sofa beds – clearly someone, or something, is up to no good. To unravel the mystery, five young employees volunteer for a long dusk-till-dawn shift and encounter horrors that defy imagination. Along the way, author Grady Hendrix infuses sly social commentary on the nature of work in the new 21st-century economy.

A traditional haunted house story in a contemporary setting, and full of current fears, Horrorstör delivers a high-concept premise in a unique style.

Review
This unique horror story is a trip through a haunted store, and through the emotional journey of the staff of Orsk. Amy, our protagonist is struggling to just get by, and doesn’t have the level of love for Orsk that some of her colleagues have. When she’s offered enough money to balance out her rent to stay just one night in the store, she could have had no idea what she was letting herself in for.

I’ve seen a lot of critical reviews for this book, some claiming it was unrealistic and oversimplified, but I think those people really missed the point of the book. The whole focus is that the store – and working there – has essentially become the lives of the people involved. It’s become everything they do, and all they think about. All apart from Amy, who has not committed herself in the same way. Basil, her supervisor, drills staff hard about their commitment to Orsk, and expects complete response in return. Yet the more time Amy spends with Basil in this cursed night, the more sides she sees to him. By the end of it, she realises, he’s her friend, whether she wanted him to be or not, as are the others.

It’s a complicated book and yet a simple one; it’s about the total control work can take over your life, and the multi-faceted pain this can cause if you don’t stop it. I read this as an audiobook, and the narration really lends itself to the story, the furniture mentioned in sparkly wording getting gradually more creepy with the descriptions, and it was a great book to get completely lost in. It also terrified me in the best way, and I was rooting for the characters while also wondering what else could possibly go wrong. Some of the scary images mentioned will stay wedged in my mind for a long time, and that’s the sign of a good horror story.

Thanks for stopping by for this review today. I’ll be back with more posts soon, and in the meantime, if you’re looking to scare yourself, Orsk is waiting for you…