Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix

164 reviews

renicula's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Torture, and Confinement

astrangewind's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

As an avid IKEA fan, I found the premise of Horrorstor to be captivating. Orsk is a perfect reflection of the home-goods-paradise-slash-capitalistic-hellscape that does resemble a panopticon, in some ways. 

There's a lot of subtle horror in this kind of labyrinthine store that Hendrix explores. For example,

Matt and Amy getting turned around in the showrooms, the fake doors opening impossibly into long concrete hallways, and the general eerieness of being in an empty store at night

. However, I wish the book remained this subtle. I wish I came out of it with a quiet, haunted feeling that follows me when I go to an IKEA-like store. Instead...

I got ghosts

. To his credit, Hendrix tried to humanize the more boring parts

such as the bit with the ectoplasm pouring out of Trinity's mouth

, but the whole trope of "structure is on top of a place where a bunch of people died" is a little bit lame. 

I did like the ending, though. Good character development, good creep factor. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Confinement

Moderate: Torture and Suicide

Minor: Death, Drug use, Slavery, Excrement, and Blood

tifftastic87's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Amy works for a soulless beige big box furniture retailer and she really dislikes it. Her goal was not to be here, but to go to college. However, coming from a low income family that's not always so easy. Crushed with student debt and bills she can never seem to catch up, she dreams of the "sit down job." She's determined to put in minimal effort and Orsk and just go along to get along. Until the day she gets offered roughly $800 in cash to put in an overnight shift to figure out what is causing some weird things to be happening. Amy agrees and shows up for the overnight with her supervisor and a lovely sweet cashier. They're surprised by two other employees who have snuck in to do their own research. What is in store is worse than a casual haunting, this runs deep. 

Another great take on capitalism by setting a tense story inside an Ikea knock-off. I only wish I read this closer to Finna. Hendrix did a really good job of using the exact types of people that I have found at every retail job I have ever had and perfectly expressing how soul crushing retail is. The way corporations treat their employees and how society views productivity in general. I really appreciated this one. It was also gory and made me squirm in just the right amount.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Confinement, and Classism

Minor: Racism and Misogyny

jacob_dion's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Suicide attempt, Death, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Body horror, Blood, Confinement, Mental illness, and Torture

pkc's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I stuck this one in just before Halloween came to a reluctant end and it was TERRIFYING. Definitely the most out and out scary of Hendrix’s books that I’ve read and so tense. I tore through it all the same. This has the Hendrix balance of scary monster plot mixed with more human elements and I ate it up. Amy was a great protagonist whose journey from reluctant participant to leader (both in life and in her situation) was fully realised in the relatively short story. Also, kudos to the ingenious design of this book. It’s very much a play on Ikea and capitalistic/homemaker philosophies but Hendrix (and I’m sure, the publishers) want you to know that Orsk is DEFINITELY NOT Ikea in any way.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Body horror, Torture, Death, Physical abuse, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood

saskia6's review against another edition

3.25

what i liked: fun horror read, deffo scary at times, characters that (although not super developed) you can root for
what i disliked: it tried to provide some sort of satire commentary on capitalism, but it couldn’t really pull it off

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement and Death

Moderate: Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, and Violence

Minor: Excrement, Body horror, Blood, and Vomit

allisonsmith120's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Confinement, Gore, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Torture

vaguely_pink's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Damn, maybe the horror really was capitalism all along.

I found it a bit hard to get into in the beginning. Hendrix's character exposition for our main narrator Amy is giving "I read a book about poor people once," or maybe I'm just jaded. However, once you get into the spooky stuff, I found it incredibly difficult to put down. I love the way Horrorstör flips the haunted house and

indigenous burial ground

tropes on their heads into an anti-capitalist "good for her" story. Truly grotesque. We love to see it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Gore, Violence, and Body horror

Moderate: Confinement and Classism

Minor: Grief, Animal death, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Excrement, and Forced institutionalization

floods, drowning, working retail

kathrynok's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Gore, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Torture, Confinement, Death, Forced institutionalization, and Violence

arielroots's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Compare to Gradys other book that I've read, this was a bit of a miss. I wasn't really interested in the characters and the plot line felt rushed and disjointed. I loved the design of the book but if I am being honest the foreign names of the house product made visualizing the setting extremely hard and confusing which would completely remove me the story.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Confinement, and Gore