Library Love: Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix

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.

Goodreads

My Thoughts:  What a fun book! Let me begin by stating how much I enjoyed the design of this book! The book was set up like an Ikea catalog, which was what drew me to it in the first place. Even the inside of the book was designed as a catalog. It had maps, coupons, order forms, and furniture lists. The design alone made the experience of reading Horrorstor unique. Now, the plot of the story...all I have to say was that it caught me off guard.

The first half of the book was a hoot. It was comical with a hint of suspense here and there. The story made fun of Ikea and the concept of working in retail. This first part was when the characters were introduced. These characters were very random and all over the place, which made it feel realistic to me. Usually a character like Amy would annoy me but it worked well here. I really enjoyed how she grew towards the end of the story even though she had a hiccup right before the story finished. Then there was Basil. Basil was an awesome character and was one of my favorites. I kept rooting for him throughout the book. This first part gave me the sense of Shaun of the Dead: it was creepy yet humorous at the same time.

However, things changed in the second part of the book. It became super creepy! This was not a bad thing; it just took me off guard on how scary it got. My heart was thumping really hard in my chest and I felt anxious for Amy as she tried to escape the store. Warning, there were a couple of gruesome parts. I don't watch gruesome movies so when I encountered these parts in the book, I actually yelped at the horror of it. I would have stopped reading it just on how gross it was but I was so eager to learn how everything was going to turn out that I kept going.

It has been a while since I've read a story that scared me the way this one did. It started off lightheartedly and then it became macabre. I think the fact that it took me off guard was what made me appreciate this book even more. And of course the layout of this book was genius. This has become a new favorite of mine! I rate it:

This book counts for the Library Love Challenge.