[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfrwSkUQEQo]

Horrorstör

Author: Grady Hendrix
Release Date: September 23, 2014
Publisher: Quirk Books
Source: Quirk Books
Genre(s): Horror, Humor

Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review Spoilers:  Low
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Ever since I heard of this book I’ve been looking forward to it. I grew up not knowing the wonders of IKEA but after three years in Phoenix with one of the crazy superstores within just a ten minute drive from home… I kind of became obsessed. Or, at the very least, I understood the hype. So the idea of a horror story taking place inside of an IKEA knock off was great.

But, honestly, it was the cover that sold me. On the front you see a cheerful (mostly cheerful) mock cover to an IKEA style catalog. On the back? Well. Things keep pretty dark.

The whole book is modeled to look like an IKEA catalog and that’s probably the best thing about the whole book. It looks good. There are maps inside, fake product descriptions, and the further along you go in the story the darker they become. The concept and presentation are what really sell this book.

The story is pretty good, too, and it would make the perfect Netflix indie horror film. I would watch it in a heartbeat. Just thinking about being stuck in an empty IKEA is freaky enough. In the book, Amy and her co-workers find themselves facing the supernatural after deciding to stay late at the local ORSK overnight after a string of vandalism gave them reason to investigate the strange happenings. Except they expected to find someone breaking in maybe. Some kids trashing the place. Instead they find something completely different – a horror none of them could have imagined.

I don’t think that Horrorstör is necessarily that scary of a book.

But it is a very solid horror story.

If you like watching cheesy horror movies on Netflix this book is for you. You’re going to want to know what happens next even if you expect it. Because the thing that’s really great about Horrorstör is that it’s a truly modern horror story. This isn’t some scary abandoned old house or some nameless, faceless slasher in the shadows.

This is basically IKEA! It’s the kind of place you would go unlike the creepy haunted house that most of us wouldn’t even enter in the first place.

It’s a horror you could unwittingly fall into yourself.

And that what makes what could be a pretty basic story into something pretty awesome.

Final Thoughts:
If your a fan of horror stories you should pick this one up if just for the novelty. It’s a cool book that your friends are going to want to pick up and thumb through if they see it because look at that cover – wouldn’t you? Definitely a great gift if nothing else. But then again all Quirk books are. They make the kind of stuff you want to gift because they are books you can feel good giving to people.