My first Bentley Novel. I hope they get better. I found this book to be a most disturbing tale that I will not give a high review to. The premise of this story is the evil behind corporate retail. It strongly reminds me of Walmart, and being an ex-employee I can say he got that much right. He also got right what big business does to small communities, but where he went askew in my eyes is in his development of his main characters family dynamics. I'm anything but a squeamish prude, but this man made me sick. Now for the positive... my husband read this novel in 6hrs and loved it. But then again, he's a sick pig. ;)

I will edit in a respectful nod to Bentley's respectful and tasteful nod to Stephen King. I thought that was fun and classy. But that was the only thing classy about this book.

1 from me - 5 from the hubby. ( )

Very inventive. The juxtaposition of horror elements with legitimate political concerns like retail incentives, inept local government, and underfunded civil services is very well-done. It strains the willing suspension of disbelief in places, and some parts seem a little too rushed to properly convey the atmosphere, but overall much better than your average mass-market horror novel. ( )

October 26, 1999
The Store
Bentley Little

Been wanting to read something by this author for some time now, as I kept seeing his name on Amazon whenever browsing through the horror listings. He has approximately half a dozen books out. This one I found at Books-A-Million in Grapevine Mills the day Mickey, Sara, Jeff and I went to see The Blair Witch Project.

At first I thought it appeared suspiciously similar to Stephen King’s “Needful Things”, about an old man and a very strange store that always seems to have exactly what you want, but the synopsis on the back of the book was misleading in that. The story is about the creeping dominance of huge, faceless chain stores – like Walmart – who have taken over the retail landscape, squeezing out the small “Mom & Pops”, the independents – and all this happening without most of us really noticing or caring. The prices are better and the shopping more convenient, and in today’s rate race where most of us don’t know or care about each other, that’s all that matters.

This book isn’t full of political statements, though its characters do rail occasionally on the evils of Big Business. It’s a very simply written story of a sinister takeover that goes mostly unnoticed except by a few, and most of those few mysteriously vanish when The Store hears about their subversiveness. ( )

Think: Scientology-run Wal-mart from Hell owned by Howard Hughes and Satan's love child! and Bentley Little reads like a mixture of Orwell, Bradbury, King and Brothers Grimm! ( )

The Store moves into the small town of Juniper Arizona. Bill Davis seems is one of the few in town who is disturbed by the sudden change of things in town. Strange things (evil) are going on inside The Store.
The story holds me for the first half and then it starts getting really twisted and sick. I just felt kinda ill by the time I finished reading it. ( )