Horrorstor, by Grady Hendrix
A horror-satire about Orsk, a haunted IKEA rip-off furniture store. ("Got a question? Just Orsk.")
After a sequence of extremely mild possible haunting events (escalator running backwards, poop on sofa, eerie texts), five employees stay overnight to get to the bottom of it, all with different motivations ranging from a plot to become breakout stars of a ghost hunter reality show to not wanting to spend yet another night home alone. Once the lights go out, things get a lot less mild.
Amy, the POV character, gets a lot of character growth, and Basil, the manager, is very likable. The others are mostly sketches, and the joke of the characters forever battling through assorted furniture sections gets repeated over and over and over.
The book is beautifully produced, with catalog entries for the furniture that get progressively warped as things get weirder, and it 100% leans into its premise. But it's a pretty slight premise, and doesn't do much more than just the premise. The characters and themes don't have the depth and richness of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Vampire Slaying, and the plot doesn't have the page-turning quality of that or My Best Friend's Exorcism.
If you like workplace satires, you'd probably like this more I did. I thought it was mostly just okay, though some moments rose above that, notably the book design and the ending.
Horrorstor[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
After a sequence of extremely mild possible haunting events (escalator running backwards, poop on sofa, eerie texts), five employees stay overnight to get to the bottom of it, all with different motivations ranging from a plot to become breakout stars of a ghost hunter reality show to not wanting to spend yet another night home alone. Once the lights go out, things get a lot less mild.
Amy, the POV character, gets a lot of character growth, and Basil, the manager, is very likable. The others are mostly sketches, and the joke of the characters forever battling through assorted furniture sections gets repeated over and over and over.
The book is beautifully produced, with catalog entries for the furniture that get progressively warped as things get weirder, and it 100% leans into its premise. But it's a pretty slight premise, and doesn't do much more than just the premise. The characters and themes don't have the depth and richness of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Vampire Slaying, and the plot doesn't have the page-turning quality of that or My Best Friend's Exorcism.
If you like workplace satires, you'd probably like this more I did. I thought it was mostly just okay, though some moments rose above that, notably the book design and the ending.
Horrorstor[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
No comments have been added yet.
