Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

Today we have a (slightly) oldie but a goodie. I finally looked through my Kindle and picked out the books that I haven't read yet (THERE WERE TOO MANY) and now I'm just grabbing one (symbolically, of course) and reading it. I'm kind of glad that Horrorstör was the first one I blindly picked.

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 comes packaged in the form of a glossy mail order catalog, complete with product illustrations, a home delivery order form, and a map of Orsk’s labyrinthine showroom.

I'll be totally honest: my entire house is filled with IKEA furniture. When I was in college, IKEA was the most amazing place in the world. A desk for $50? A couch for $100? I imagined that this huge factory-like building was what Heaven was like. Then, as I grew up, I understood that IKEA wasn't the best furniture and that I didn't really care. I still had my same desk from college and that thing had lasted for years. But I still worried about one thing: the employees. Whenever I went to IKEA, I could see the absolute hopelessness in some of the employee's eyes. The people they had to deal with, the environment they were working in, the vast area of crap that they had to keep clean. It's enough to drive anyone mad.

And that's exactly what this book is about.

Amy doesn't like Orsk. She doesn't like her fellow employees, the fact that she has to smile all the time at stupid customers, and her boss that keeps pushing her to do more with her time at Orsk. But she needs money, and that's why she volunteers for the night shift, because it'll get her her rent money and keep her roommates off her back. But she never signed up for ghost hunting employees, strange writing on the walls, and ghosts that want revenge any way they can get it.

At first, I thought that Horrorstör was something of a comedy/horror, where I could read it at night and not be totally paranoid about looking out the windows. But that was not the case. Sure, there were parts to this book that were really funny, especially anything that involved Amy's disdain for everything around her, but, for the most part, Horrorstör is a scary, scary book. Grady Hendrix did a wonderful job at detailing each and every scare, bringing them all to life and causing your imagination to work overtime. I had to put the book down a few nights and read something else because it was giving me the chills.

Basically, this book is a trip from the beginning to the end. I think what I loved especially was the ending. I won't spoil anything, but let's just say that the ending left a lot to be desired. And that's why I loved it! Horror movies aren't supposed to have an ending. They're supposed to resonate with you forever and make you look over your shoulder twice at that weird sound in the other room. Great horror movies make you feel safe for about two seconds at the end before throwing another wrench in your face. That's exactly what this book does. It reminded me of the original Nightmare on Elm Street, when Nancy walks outside and everything is lovely, and then the car turns into Freddy. That's exactly what this book does.

So, my advice: grab this book. Buy it, rent it, steal it from a friend. Do whatever you can to read this book. You'll be so glad that you did.

I'll see you guys Wednesday!