Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

This book is so much fun.

Horrorstör takes place in an IKEA-alike store called Orsk (Need help? Just Orsk.) The main character is Amy. Amy transferred to the store from another closer to home to try to improve her life and get away from her mother's trailer park. But, she's having trouble keeping up with her rent and hasn't managed to get ahead at work so she's put in for a transfer.

Meanwhile, strange things are happening at the store during the hours it's closed and each morning damage is being found. When Amy's boss decides that he needs a few people to stay overnight and patrol the store to find the perpetrator of the damage, she balks until he offers her extra pay. He also enlists the help of a second employee that everyone loves. And, then, the three of them discover two other employees have stowed away, so to speak, to do some ghost hunting at Orsk after finding out that it sits on the location of a former prison.

So, there are 5 characters: the failure, the uptight boss who really is insecure, the sweet and innocent spinster, the overenthusiastic ghost hunter, and the guy who just wants to get the girl and find fame and fortune (or the "user", I guess).

The first half of the book, approximately, is mostly set-up and it's a delight. Grady Hendrix has a wonderful, light touch so there's a lot of humor and you get to know the characters well before he ramps up the horror aspect of the book. Then, the suspense and terror gradually build as the ghosts come out, bent on tormenting the employees and breaking their wills.

Highly recommended - I'm not a horror fan and I found this book more gruesome and yucky than scary so it was very tolerable for me. I looked at the ratings of friends at Goodreads and they were mostly 3- and 4-star ratings so that may not be true for normal horror readers. I gave it 5 because I found the story so hard to put down and I loved the touches of humor, loved the way Amy grows in the story, and thought the ending was solid. I just noticed people are talking about a newer book by Grady Hendrix, a couple days ago. You can bet I will be looking into that one, as well.


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