Publication Date: September 23, 2014
Library: Yup, I checked this book out from myself
Synopsis
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.
Another book suggested to me by Reading Glasses! First things first, this book is less that 200 pages and that's GLORIOUS. I love to read as much as the next library girly but sometimes I need something short, sweet, and to the point, and this book didn't let me down. It also takes place in what is basically an IKEA knockoff which is hillaious!
Our main character Amy drove me up the wall. Girl, why are you so mean and snarky!!!! But in all honesty I get it. Amy was the personification of someone who's always in fight and flight mode, someone who's never been able to stop fighting for the bare minimum. She's snarky and rude. She doesn't seem to care about anyone (for the most part) but that's what can happen when a person is born playing the defense of life. It's exhausting and once you're tired enough, you've got nothing left but sarcasm.
That being said it was interesting seeing her balanced against Basil. Now, for anyone who's never been to Ohio and has seen some rough streets, the idea that part of Cleveland can be "dangerous" may almost be laughable. I certainly scoffed at the idea. I lived in Cleveland Heights for a year with my cousin, and before we found our apt, he was telling me about super cheap places that he was finding in East Cleveland. I was all for it, but he kept telling me what a rough area it was, and I didn't believe him. What could Ohio possibly know about rough. Then we went to East Cleveland.... I have never been so wrong in my life, at least about the part of it we were in. I was immediately glad we hadn't moved there. I say all of this to say, that Amy, lived a rough life with her mom in the trailer. We don't know much about Basil (low key, I want his backstory), but we know he's raising his little sister, and he's from East Cleveland. We see who Amy has turned into as a result of her life circumstances, and Basil seems to have become her exact opposite. Why is that you say. Well, because Basil is like me. For some people, when your life is full of chaos, instead of making the decisions that Amy did, you do your best to beat life into submission and control every thing that you can. While's Basil's constant quoting of various Orsk handbooks and rules, and his initial insistence that nothing was wrong, was infuriating, I instantly clocked it as someone who relied on order and control to maintain his sanity. Someone who was going to work twice as hard because he couldn't afford not it.
This is a lot of character information for a horror book, but we were able to see how some of the horror of Orsk tapped in to some of the deep pathologies of who the characters were. The store ultimately began to seep into their minds pulling our their deepest fears and the worst versions on themselves, on top of a pretty terrifying ghost backstory. And fingernail stuff. If you're freaked out by fingernail stuff, it IS in this book, so be ware.
I loved this book so much that when I was about 65% in, I drove to the library to check out another Grady Hendrix book. This is a great introductory horror to someone who's interested and isn't afraid of some gore, not as bad as Saw but maybe as bad as A Haunting in Connecticut for you movie folks out there.
I'm now a huge Grady Hendrix fan and I can't wait to see what else he has out there!
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.
Summary
Another book suggested to me by Reading Glasses! First things first, this book is less that 200 pages and that's GLORIOUS. I love to read as much as the next library girly but sometimes I need something short, sweet, and to the point, and this book didn't let me down. It also takes place in what is basically an IKEA knockoff which is hillaious!
Our main character Amy drove me up the wall. Girl, why are you so mean and snarky!!!! But in all honesty I get it. Amy was the personification of someone who's always in fight and flight mode, someone who's never been able to stop fighting for the bare minimum. She's snarky and rude. She doesn't seem to care about anyone (for the most part) but that's what can happen when a person is born playing the defense of life. It's exhausting and once you're tired enough, you've got nothing left but sarcasm.
That being said it was interesting seeing her balanced against Basil. Now, for anyone who's never been to Ohio and has seen some rough streets, the idea that part of Cleveland can be "dangerous" may almost be laughable. I certainly scoffed at the idea. I lived in Cleveland Heights for a year with my cousin, and before we found our apt, he was telling me about super cheap places that he was finding in East Cleveland. I was all for it, but he kept telling me what a rough area it was, and I didn't believe him. What could Ohio possibly know about rough. Then we went to East Cleveland.... I have never been so wrong in my life, at least about the part of it we were in. I was immediately glad we hadn't moved there. I say all of this to say, that Amy, lived a rough life with her mom in the trailer. We don't know much about Basil (low key, I want his backstory), but we know he's raising his little sister, and he's from East Cleveland. We see who Amy has turned into as a result of her life circumstances, and Basil seems to have become her exact opposite. Why is that you say. Well, because Basil is like me. For some people, when your life is full of chaos, instead of making the decisions that Amy did, you do your best to beat life into submission and control every thing that you can. While's Basil's constant quoting of various Orsk handbooks and rules, and his initial insistence that nothing was wrong, was infuriating, I instantly clocked it as someone who relied on order and control to maintain his sanity. Someone who was going to work twice as hard because he couldn't afford not it.
This is a lot of character information for a horror book, but we were able to see how some of the horror of Orsk tapped in to some of the deep pathologies of who the characters were. The store ultimately began to seep into their minds pulling our their deepest fears and the worst versions on themselves, on top of a pretty terrifying ghost backstory. And fingernail stuff. If you're freaked out by fingernail stuff, it IS in this book, so be ware.
I loved this book so much that when I was about 65% in, I drove to the library to check out another Grady Hendrix book. This is a great introductory horror to someone who's interested and isn't afraid of some gore, not as bad as Saw but maybe as bad as A Haunting in Connecticut for you movie folks out there.
I'm now a huge Grady Hendrix fan and I can't wait to see what else he has out there!
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