s.penkevich's Reviews > Horrorstör

Seeing how working a low-wage retail job is a quotidian nightmare, it naturally lends itself as a springboard into horror. Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix cartwheels and leaps off that springboard to yell cannonball right into a pool of blood, blending fear and funny for a wild and wicked ride of retail horror. Now I’m not talking the horror of the close-talkers, the arm touchers, the “if it doesn’t scan it must be free” types, the “you must be new here” folks, the “someone peed on the clothes in the fitting room” days, the “someone smeared poop on the bathroom wall” days, the “people are having sex in the fitting room where someone pooped on the wall” days, the register crashing on a Christmas season saturday, or even the “I can’t open another register because there is literally nobody else but me here” moments. Well, those too, but I’m talking economic anxiety manifesting into violent, deadly ghosts making the already-creepy afterhours of a retail store into a haunted house horrorfest that Shirley Jackson would swig her brandy and yell “oh HELL YEA!” at. Okay I can’t confirm the last part but IF SHE DID it would fit this book quite well. Hendrix comically spoofs retail work, turning motivational slogans and corporate workstructure into a kafkaesque comedy hellbent on tearing your sanity to shreds and then unleashes evil hellbent on tearing the employees to shreds. Which is what I imagine was about to happen to me one time if I hadn't just given up and agreed with a customer that Louise Penny's writing is ruined when translated into English from French (Oh they aren't translated, not everyone in Canada writes in French, but there was no convincing them). Who would have guessed building an IKEA-knock-off on a site of an old prison full of torture trauma could have been a bad idea?

This was my first foray into Hendrix and I have to thank my cool coworker Taylor for basically forcing me to read this. YOU WERE RIGHT. This was so much fun and what starts as some biting satire that will have you laughing very abruptly turns into a gore-fest that will have you screaming. With fun mostly, but whew can Hendrix write some violence. I really vibed with the retail stuff and the oddball cast of characters forced into close proximity under the constant duress of customers now having to survive the night after an ill-advised séance goes awry. But I really loved how it is all a big metaphor for being underpaid, overworked, and feeling trapped in the spiral of slowly dying for the sake of someone else's stock profits. So great, now IKEA will seem scary. Though I still believe it would be a perfect place to hold down the fort during a zombie apocalypse. This was a blast and a perfect way to have some bloody good fun this spooky season.

3.5/5