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Horrorstör, by Grady Hendrix (2014)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️?

Premise: A diverse group of big box store employees investigate when a series of increasingly disturbing (and possibly paranormal) events disrupt the store.

Review: I haven‘t been a fan of Hendrix‘s other work, but this really worked for me. It struck a great balance between being legitimately frightening and a hilarious and effective satire of corporate culture in late-stage capitalism. Super fun.

Hendrix writes some weird-ass books. Some employees at ORSK (an IKEA knockoff) are recruited to stay overnight with their boss to see if they can catch someone that has been vandalizing the store. It turns into quite the nightmare. The story is a commentary on modern work and consumerism, but turns creepy and bizarre. It‘s spooky enough for a scaredy cat like me and has some good laughs too. This is my fourth Hendrix and my favorite so far.

Free books at #silentbookclub tonight!

Had been meaning to read this book for such a long time. Finally did. Recommend!!

Added Horrorstör for October with wild card Lethal Licorice. It was a pretty good month. ?

4✨I don‘t know what it is about this book that made me like it so much. Being in a store overnight to try to catch a vandal was an interesting storyline. Then being way more than that was even more intriguing. Normally, I can handle gore and this book had a lot! There was a few scenes I had to pause to take a breather from the very vivid descriptive writing on the gore. Overall, I would say this was the most memorable story I read this month.

IKEA is my nightmare so this was right up my alley until it wasn‘t. The ending dragged a bit for me. Concept was pure genius though.

This was fun in the way that a lot of cheesy ‘80s horror movies are fun. Just go along for the ride and maybe don‘t think too much about the plot.

The design of the book is fun. And if you‘ve ever worked in corporate retail (experiences I never want to have again/at least 33% of the reason why I‘m a socialist 😆), then the satire will definitely hit for you.

“‘Perfect timing,‘ Trinity said, grinning at the others. ‘Now, who‘s in?‘”

#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude
I always love Spotify's daylists. They are just too funny.
🎵🎶💀👻😈🎶🎵

#Bookreport

📚Currently reading:

📕A Dance with Dragons
📕Akechi Kogoro
📙The Witness for the Dead

Progress:
Almost forgot to post this. Finished 2 novels last week and 1 short story, so I will call that a productive week. Steadily getting through ADWD, need to find time to start the other 2 I've been swamped with life stuff.

This was a pretty short listen (around 5 ish hours) it felt kind of... disappointing. The characters were flat and relied heavily on horror tropes, though Amy was way too relatable. the spooky shit was definitely spooky but also very one-dimensional, the ending was hopeful but also didn't feel like it wrapped anything up.

3.5 Stars • Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix is a horror-comedy novel set in ORSK, a fictional IKEA-like store, where employees Amy, Ruth Anne, and Basil stay overnight to investigate mysterious acts of vandalism. The story takes a dark turn as they uncover the store's disturbing history tied to an old prison and its sadistic warden, leading to supernatural events and a fight for survival.

#Horrorstor #GradyHendrix

This book has been on my TBR list since I first heard about it shortly after publication, yet for some reason I only just read it. Took me long enough, but once I had my hands on a copy I couldn't put it down. Hilarious and Terrifying! What a brilliant idea Hendrix had when he brainstormed this horrifying novel of craziness. I loved all the blatant nods to Ikea and how there were illustrations, product fliers, and ads throughout the book. ⤵️

This book was a hoot! I thoroughly enjoyed it but so curious to see how my bookclub will receive it. I‘ll think of this story on every future Ikea visit.

Glad I grabbed my book when I headed out for lunch because my kid landed herself in the ER and I‘ll be here for a few hours. 😬
I‘m grateful I‘m in town for her but sad she won‘t be able to perform in her musical this evening with a concussion

I‘ve been wanting to read this one for a long time, and it doesn‘t disappoint. The Christopher Moore snarky humor vibes are strong.

At Scarlet Lane Brewery for Scarelastic Bookfair featuring horror authors and a few independent publishers. It was awesome! Got so many new books, totally blew my budget. 100% would do again.

“She knew he was building an HR case against her, accumulating a long list of missteps and failures. When the staff cuts came - and everyone knew cuts were coming; you could sense a weird sort of tension in the air - Amy knew she would be at the top of Basil‘s list.”

Satire. Creepy & paranormal. Horror balanced with the right amount of nuance and humor. Unique IKEA catalog-like format complete with furniture ads at the start of each chapter. I enjoy Grady Hendrix's writing and was immediately connected and invested in the characters. I also found the background on the haunting interesting.

This weekend's acquisitions. Now to decide what's up next.

Mini-haul, Waterstones Edinburgh 🥰

Gisela, you spoiled me! (Sorry, I don't have your Litsy handle)
I looove the Día de los Muertos decor but sadly, the globe's stand came broken. However, thank you!!!

#HHS #HHS23 @wanderinglynn

In a downmarket knockoff of IKEA, manager Basil picks Amy and Ruth Ann to investigate things that go bump in the night.

It wasn't as funny as I thought it was going to be, but nevertheless I enjoyed the first half where the characters were investigating the shop at night. The second half was certainly dark but I didn't feel particularly creeped out, just wanted the story to get a move on.

#seasonalbookandbeverage

Hiding in a Lingam 🤣🤣🤣

This is a great selection for the Halloween season. The story takes place in a furniture store similar to IKEA, even though it was made very clear at the beginning of the book that it‘s not based on an IKEA store. Based on other readers‘ comments about the comparison to an IKEA store, I thought this was going to be a goofy book. I couldn‘t have been more wrong! It was a good, haunted furniture store story.

Full review at https://abookandadog.com

And that‘s a wrap on the week 1 #scarathlon game for me! I made different lists each day of book titles that reminded me of our two buddy reads, resulting in a strange and complicated google sheet lol

#skeletoncrew

Witty concept. Poor execution on audible. I found myself checking out constantly. Couldn‘t have cared less about the characters or whatever demon/ghost.

Even though I‘ve already filled my buddy read spot for the #skeletoncrew this #scarathlon - I decided I couldn‘t resist rereading our other buddy read option! I loved this just as much as last time - the perfect mix of horror, comedy, and genuinely moving parts about the MC‘s coworkers being worth fighting with and for even tho the company is trying to kill your soul.

Here are my results for the week 1 #scarathlon game!

I went through my LibraryThing collection of books read to see which ones had things in common with our #skeletoncrew buddy reads but ran out of steam after listing 306 books. Most were in the fantasy or horror genres but I was especially proud of finding a decorating book that matched “furniture“ for Horrorstor!

Next audible

This book was SO GOOD! I even made my 7th graders read for 30 minutes so that I could model reading with this book. The imagery was stellar and I will never look at a wholesale store the same again. 4/5! #scarathlon #creepinitreal

I guess I like my horror with a side of hilarious. I think this is Hendrix‘s best book. Though I haven‘t read all of them. I‘ll never feel quite the same walking through IKEA.

Did anyone else notice that all the item numbers for the products had 666 in them? Made me chuckle.

(Pictured in front of my IKEA billy shelves😆)

Attention #scarathlon #skeletoncrew! There‘s a couple choices for our buddy read, worth 50 points, though you can only use one book as the buddy read. I wanted to give more and less scary options

Horrorstör is a horrific comedy about hell and labour relations set in a store that can‘t legally be called IKEA

Comedy? Suspense? Quirky? Scary? Yes!! Starting this today. 🪑

Tackle the TBR 🤓📚
What are you reading?
#boleybooks #horrorstor #gradyhendrix #bookbeast #bookbuds #bookchat 🙌

Finished! Not a big fan of horror books but this one was pretty good. Comedy and horror is melded pretty well.

Extra ¼ star for the audio – loved the Orsk “ads”, and they got better as the book went along (to kind of fit what was happening in the book). I particularly liked the last ad, and it was Bronson Pinchot doing those. The story was less horror in the first half, more mystery? And humour. I really liked how it ended.

#LMPBC Round 18 - Group H
@BeckyWithTheGoodBooks @Maggie4483 @vonnie862 @suvata has joined the horror train. I just wanted to take a minute to start the discussion about what books we will be reading this round. This is going to be fun… And scary.

4-18-23: My 42nd finished book of 2023! I loved the whole concept of this book. From the cover art to the chapter set up this story really gives you a full experience. Amy works at Orsk, and take off on IKEA, where she is pretty miserable and believes she is about to be fired. Then one night her manager asks her to stay in the store overnight to help him catch whoever is vandalizing and all hell, literally, breaks loose. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️📖#️⃣4️⃣2️⃣

So I'd gone to work the other day and forgot to bring my current read. No worries I work in a bookstore so I decided to pick this one up. First it's Grady Hendrix so you know it's going to be quirky. This was fun a haunted IKEA store and sarcastic and campy characters and voila. This is probably one of my favorites by him.

Grady Hendrix is my favorite author, and this is one of his best. A campy horror story about a haunted Ikea. Also, a sarcastic, moody main character that I love.

This is a book that you really need to have the physical copy to get the full reading experience.

Set out like an IKEA catalogue this is the story of Orsk, a furniture store where customers follow the Bright and Shining path through the showrooms, down onto the Market floor (sound familiar?).

Something weird is going on at Orsk, the opening team are finding poop on the sofas, broken furniture and corporate are becoming concerned.

Was fun!

Weird. Neat setting.

This was such a fun horror/comedy novel. It is about a Haunted knock off Ikea store. The book was designed to look like an Ikea catalog.

@teebe my #CreepyChristmas is coming from Amazon all it should be to @rsteve388 by the 30th. The items should be wrapped seeing I did pay for wrapping.

Setting aside any regards for its contents, Horrorstor gets five stars for book design, alone. Look at it! It‘s formatted to look like an IKEA catalogue, complete with an order form for a copyright page and product descriptions for chapter headers. It‘s honestly one of the most beautiful tomes I‘ve ever had the privilege of placing on my shelves. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/horrorstor-grady-hendrix/

This book is best as a physical copy, because it is made to look like an old school catalogue (which is definitely based on ikea)

This was the first Grady Hendrix I read, and I enjoyed this tale of a #Haunted furniture store 👻

#OminousOctober #Scarathlon2022 #TeamMonsterMash

Oh my! Hendrix sure likes to use rats in his horror stories 😳 I also have a thing about snot - when little, people blowing their noses used to make me gag - so let me tell you, there is a certain scene in this book that was A Problem lol.
Anyway, good setting, entertaining integration of the increasingly disturbing ikea-like product descriptions, but I could do without the body horror 🤢
Read for #aam and #scarathlon