Did you know there was an Ikea horror novel? Because I have known about it for a while now and I’ve finally gotten around to checking it out!
Horrorstor focuses on Amy, a woman working what feels like a dead-end job at an Ikea knockoff store called Orsk. There’s been some vandalism happening overnight when no one is in the store. She is asked to stay and Amy along with her coworkers discover that the store has been built on an asylum and it’s being haunted by the inmates and the old warden, who thinks he can heal them of their illnesses.
The book feels very much like it was written by someone who has spent a long time in retail and I appreciate that. Amy needs the job, but she does not buy into the corporate platitudes that insist that Orsk is a family and that it should be an integral part of her life like some of her coworkers have taken it, which feels familiar to even my office positions.
I also really like how the parallels between retail and imprisonment worked. They are obvious to anyone who’s been in retail for a while, but it’s entertaining to watch them come alive on the page as the people in the store are dragged deeper into the store and try to get out.1 Each of the characters is an archetype and it all plays very nicely together to make a fun ride.
Overall, I really enjoyed it! It reads a lot differently than some of the other books I’ve been reading lately, but I think it was just what I needed to get out of the reading funk I’ve been in. And it was a great time, so I’d recommend it to anyone looking for something… maybe not light, but a quick horror story that isn’t going to give you nightmares.
- Or not get out… [↩]