American Horror Store(y)

I worked in retail for one long month, I hated every minute of it. Every one of those 30 days chipped away at my spirit, I couldn't get the hell out of there fast enough. It takes a very special kind of person  to work retail, God bless them. 

Horrorstor is the story of Amy, your every day 20 something wage slave working for an Ikea store knockoff. She's broke and with every passing day she gets broker. She's late on her rent, drives a crappy car and is concerned that she will soon lose her job. In a desperate bid to keep her job for as long as she can and earn some quick cash to keep her roommates off of her back with a partial rent payment she agrees to work over night with her manager Basil and fellow employee RuthAnne to figure out who or what's been causing damage to the store's inventory. 

As it turns out the store is haunted by a long dead warden and his prisoners. The warden's idea of reforming inmates was to torture them to death and drive them insane by inflicting painful pointless and monotonous tasks such as turning a hand crank for hours on end. Thanks to two co-workers who snuck in to film their ghost hunting reality show in a bid for TV stardom, the evil warden breaks through the spirit realm into the earth realm during a seance. Of course all hell breaks loose and Amy must confront her fears and grow up a little to save her co-workers.

I was immediately drawn to this book because of its design. You know that it's supposed to look like a generic Ikea catalog and the inside doesn't disappoint either. Just like an Ikea catalog, the inside has drawings of different Orsk (the name of the knockoff chain store) furniture and the schlocky descriptions of their form and function and of course how these particle board pieces of crap enrich your and your family's lives. 

Of course nothing about Horrorstor is horrifying or remotely "eek" inducing, it's a lot of fun and amusing. If you're looking for a scare then move onto the next book, but if you're looking for something a little different in a highly cliched genre, then this is the book for you.