Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Columbus, Ohio. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring wardrobes, shattered Brooka glassware, and vandalized Liripip sofa beds clearly, someone or something is up to no good.

To unravel the mystery, five young employees volunteer for a long dusk-till-dawn shift—and they encounter horrors that defy imagination. Along the way, author Grady Hendrix infuses sly social commentary on the nature of work in the new twenty-firstcentury economy.

I went into this book without a very clear idea of what to expect. After all, it’s not every day that you get to read a novel that looks like an IKEA catalog. 

The novel’s strongest point is its narrative pacing. It is a horror novel, so building up the tension and then allowing for the horror to really overflow the pages is vital to be successful. The author was able to do this without too much stumbling. The last half of the novel will leave you blinking in disbelief and with a renewed respect for IKEA-like furniture, if for the wrong reasons. 

The book’s weakest point, I felt, was the gimmicky aspect. The furniture descriptions before each chapter along with the blueprint drawings were overkill. The story is strong enough in its own right not to need any of that. It ends up distracting the reader. If there had been clues or secret meanings stashed in the descriptions, then that would have made sense, but when you can get rid of something in a book without the loss of it impacting the story, you should get rid of it. 

If you are looking for a scary story with a bit of the absurd to it, as well, then this one is a good choice.