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January 15, 2015

Review: Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix


Title: Horrorstör
Author: Grady Hendrix
Publisher: Random House Canada
Publication date: September 24, 2014
Genre(s): Fiction/Horror
Source: Publisher
Format: Finished Copy
Pages: 256
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.
On first glance, Horrorstor looks like any furniture catalogue you would see. It really doesn't look like a novel, which was one of the factors that intrigued me to further look into at. After reading the synopsis, I really wanted to get my hands on it and read it. I'm a big fan of horror stories, and when they have pictures and images, that just excites me even more. I was very happy when the publisher sent me a finished copy, and I devoured it for quite a while before I even started reading it.  
 
Horrorstor is a story about Amy, a girl who works at the retail store Orsk. Amy is a girl who works hard and struggles to pay her rent. One day, weird stuff started happening at Orsk. The staff working there would find poop on furniture and vandalism on walls of bathrooms and such. Basil, the manager of the store, decides to keep two staff members with him in a night shift, where they hope to find the culprit of this vandalism. Saying anything more will most likely spoil the book for you, so I will stop here. The characters in the book were great. Amy was just your typical teenage (her age was never mentioned... I'm assuming she's in her 20s? does that even make her a teenager anymore? I don't think so...) girl who works hard to get money to pay for rent and gas and food. Truth be told, she didn't stand out for me much. Basil was kind of funny, but sometimes annoying (aren't all managers). Other characters were also included, which added more character depth overall. 
One of the major problems I had with this book was that I think it could have ended faster than it did. Instead of it being 256 pages, I think it would have wrapped up nicely in about 200 pages. Some of the stuff felt repetitive to me, and I found myself getting tired. That was really upsetting for me, because the book started off really well and I was excited to see what would happen later on. Despite the predictable scenes in the middle of the book, I can say that I enjoyed how the book ended. Would I recommend this? Absolutely. It was fun going through the book. The overall experience was fun, and I loved the theme of it being set in something similar to an IKEA store. This may lean more towards those who are younger teens.

2 comments:

  1. Aw, yay :) Awesome review sweetie. <3 I'm glad you ended up enjoying this one, despite some issues :) I don't think this would be a book for me, though it do look kind of interesting ;p but also a bit boring for me :p but I'm glad you liked it :D Thank you for sharing about it Farah. <3

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  2. I really enjoyed reading this. It felt like watching a typical American horror movie. I like the atmosphere it creates but after reading it, it's just not one of those books I'll think about all night or even something I'll look back to. It was just a really enjoyable read to me. Great review! :)

    czai @ the Blacksheep Project

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