Well, this book was just amazing.



Orsk, an Ikea rip-off store, is hell. Retail hell - something Hendrix seems to be very familiar with.



Here are the opening paragraphs:



It was dawn, and the zombies were stumbling through the parking lot, streaming toward the massive beige box at the far end. Later they'd be resurrected by megadoses of Starbucks, but for now they were the barely living dead. Their causes of death differed: hangovers, nightmares, strung out from epic online gaming sessions, circadian

Well, this book was just amazing.



Orsk, an Ikea rip-off store, is hell. Retail hell - something Hendrix seems to be very familiar with.



Here are the opening paragraphs:



It was dawn, and the zombies were stumbling through the parking lot, streaming toward the massive beige box at the far end. Later they'd be resurrected by megadoses of Starbucks, but for now they were the barely living dead. Their causes of death differed: hangovers, nightmares, strung out from epic online gaming sessions, circadian rhythms broken by late night TV, children who couldn't stop crying, neighbors partying till 4 a.m., broken hearts, unpaid bills, roads not taken, sick dogs, deployed daughters, ailing parents, midnight ice cream binges.



But every morning, five days a week (seven during the holidays), they dragged themselves here, to the one thing in their lives that never changed, the one thing they could count on come rain, or shine, or dead pets, or divorce: work.



This book has a normal "horror" movie cast of characters: Amy, the poor girl struggling to escape from her trailer park background; Matt, the cynical hipster with an enormous beard; Trinity, the flirty, fun, rainbow-colored Korean-American rebelling against her conservative Christian parents; Ruth Anne, the kind-hearted, lonely, unmarried, childless, work-is-my-life country-singer look-alike; and Basil, the manager who speaks in retail-jargon and is always lecturing his employees on the joys of working for Orsk.



I liked the fact that there was actually character development in this novel. For instance, I started off really despising Basil, but he slowly grows on you as the novel goes on. Ruth Anne also shows different facets of herself that you initially don't believe she has in her.



The horror is truly horrifying. DO NOT READ THIS UNLESS YOU ARE A HORROR FAN. It might not seem so at first, but this book ends up in really gruesome and terrifying places. If you are squeamish or don't enjoy horror, this is NOT a fun book.



Hendrix does a great job of slowly building up the horror and also introducing you to the cast. This is in his favor. Horror has to be human - if you just throw scary stuff around with no strong character base than you've got nothing. Hendrix obviously knows this and delivers.



But when the crap hits the fan and bad, bad things start happening (around page 116) you are instantly on a roller coaster going 100 mph and you cannot get off, slow down, or let go. It's brutal and very fast-paced.



This book, although it seems like a gimmick at first glance with it's awesome cover and back cover, maps of the store inside, coupons inside, Orsk-catalog format, and blue printing - is actually a genuinely good and serious horror novel. No joke. I didn't know what to expect and I was completely bowled over by the sheer power and force of Hendrix's writing and imagination. This book is very well-done, even after you strip away all the bells and whistles.



I thought it would be funny, and there are bits of humor (only in the first 100 pages before everything goes south) but what I wasn't expecting was a full-on, twisted, horror book bonanza. Hendrix really surprised me, in a good way.



As I was reading this, it was very easy to picture it as a horror movie in my mind. This would look great on-screen and would make an excellent film.



The ONLY part that wasn't working for me was the 3 or 4 times Hendrix uses rats as his scare/creep factor. I am just not scared of rats. So those parts were just me being all, "Whatever. Chill out, people. They're just rats." But since Hendrix primarily focuses on actually creepy stuff, this didn't end up to be too annoying, and only took me out of the horror of the story once or twice.



This book has one of the most amazing, scary, and creepy séances that I have ever read. Very, very well-written 5 pages.



Tl;dr - this novel starts out slow, to introduce you to the characters and make you comfortable. Once the horror is introduced you are sucked in and cannot let go. The story leaps off the page and surrounds you. It's wonderful. Avoid if you don't enjoy horror - this is very 'horror' and NOT a joke-type book, despite its appearance.



P.S. If I were IKEA, I would sell this in the store, have big displays with this, have it on counters and bookshelves, and basically exploit the heck out of it. It's fun and good advertising. Also, it's October. Someone at IKEA should get on this.



P.P.S. Those opening paragraphs that I posted reminded me a lot of one of my favorite films, Sean of the Dead.