Review: Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix

Orsk: an Ikea-esque warehouse with dark secrets
Basil: an overeager Orsk manager looking for answers in order to keep his job
Amy: an apathetic Orsk employee just looking to pay her back rent and not default on her bills
Ruth-Anne: an older Orsk employee, full of love for her occupation and her coworkers are her only family
Matt: an Orsk employee willing to do just about anything to get in a girl's pants
Trinity: an eccentric Orsk employee, believes in the supernatural, has an alternative appearance

The employees of Orsk have noticed peculiar events happening during the night. They enter the warehouse for their morning shift and find broken merchandise, messy displays, and foul smelling substances smeared on Brookas. They assume that the perpetrator is a prankster or maybe a homeless guy sneaking into the store to sleep. When Basil recruits a team of employees to stay the night in the warehouse to investigate the happenings, what they learn is not at all what they expect.

This novel was extremely creative in formatting and design. The book is laid out like an Ikea catalog, with illustrations of furniture designating the chapters. Hendrix really outdid himself in coming up with this amazing format for a horror novel. It adds to the narrative and helps in maintaining the atmosphere. The illustrations begin normal towards the beginning of the novel and get progressively more creepy as events unfold.

While the layout and illustrations are genius in the creation of this novel, Hendrix's execution of the writing and plot is not as satisfactory. Hendrix is great at writing action scenes but it seems as if the explanation for the events happening at night is thrown together as a way to just get the author to the action scenes. Hendrix knows his strengths and tries to cater to them but I was not completely convinced of his skill level.

The novel was most definitely entertaining and compelling but it is not worthy of a second read. The journey of Horrorstor is an experience but one to only be experienced once. The novel would be no fun if the reader already knew the ending. Additionally, the ending for me was very unsatisfactory. However, even though I think this novel could have been better, it is worth a read. It is a speedy read that will keep you devouring the pages.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  concept, design, and layout
⭐⭐⭐ execution
⭐⭐⭐⭐ overall, mostly for the overall experience

If you have any other questions, just orsk!

💜   Crystal