Reviews with content warning for Death - Horrorstor

Reviews tagging 'Death'

Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix

233 reviews

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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jacob_dion's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

3.25

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alexisgarcia's review against another edition

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mysterious tense

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

3.0

if you go into this book knowing it’s a sillier thriller based on a parody of ikea, it’s a pretty good time. i think the ending was really well done.

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pkc's review against another edition

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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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saskia6's review against another edition

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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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allisonsmith120's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

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vaguely_pink's review against another edition

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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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