My take: If you like IKEA and you like horror stories, give this book a read.
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars
I love IKEA. Every room of my house has something from that store. I also love horror, as you well know at this point. Imagine my delight when a book came out that combined the two: Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix.
It’s a story of a fictional IKEA knockoff store called Orsk. Everything about Orsk is IKEA, from the Marketplace to the showrooms designed to draw you in and never let you out.
Cover of Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix
Strange things start happening at the store: items go missing, sofas are defiled, and people get inexplicably turned around in the aisles. An overzealous manager decides to keep a couple of employees late one night to investigate. The same night, two other employees trespass to film their own amateur pilot of a ghost-hunting show.
Both plans go quickly awry. This Orsk happened to be built on top of a demolished prison, where countless prisoners were killed by their mad warden. Now the warden and prisoners are haunting the store and are out to imprison the five poor souls in the store that night.
The book is short and it isn’t the best piece of fiction I have read. However, what it lacks in depth and density, it makes up for in the terrific design of the book itself. The inside and outside of the cover is designed to look just like an IKEA catalog. It has, in fact, fooled several people who saw me reading it. Additionally, the chapters are broken up with descriptions for fake furniture you can buy at Orsk.
The result is a very fun read that I recommend if you’re looking for a quick read and like a ghost story.
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