Reviews tagging 'Death'

Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

226 reviews

whatthegayle's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

“Everything always comes down to those two choices: stay down or stand up.”

I listened to this book on audible and honestly I think I enjoyed it more listening to it than if I read it. 

I loved the journey the main character went through and how it changed her. The horror elements were very well done and I loved the idea behind this book.

There’s always something creepy about seeing places that are usually so full be empty and dark.

I love how in the end, Amy is offered the one thing she wanted and turned it down. It shows how she changed. Also love how Basil and her both came back at the end to try and free their lost coworkers

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Content Warnings

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

mj452's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious reflective 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Blood, Death, Gore, Suicide, Vomit, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Grief, and Medical content

Minor: Misogyny, Alcohol, and Sexual content

katlam_24's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-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

5.0

I just finished this, and it’s the first horror book I’ve read in a while. I really really hated and loved this book so much. I don’t ever want to read it again, but I will talk about it for years to come. It was so unique right off the bat. I expected this to be a dumb and silly little haunted IKEA, which it was initially and drew me in. The characters felt real but I didn’t realize how much I liked them until I wasn’t sure they’d make it out. Once it got ugly, it got UGLY. There were a handful of times I physically squirmed and had to put the book down because I could FEEL the disgusting gory bits in my mind. I usually read romance and fantasy books and they tend to feel repetitive after a while so I like to throw in a book like this to shake things up. This one for sure did the trick. I want to crawl under the covers and read sweet books until the urge to shake things up grips me again. I highly recommend reading this book if you want suspense, gore, disgust, humor, and just overall a terrifying good bad time

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Physical abuse, Body horror, Violence, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Murder, Emotional abuse, Death, 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

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

alexisgarcia's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Grief, Toxic friendship, Blood, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Violence, Gaslighting, Murder, Torture, and Gore

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