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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
WalMart meets Jim Jones meets the Demonic Presence,
By
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This review is from: The Store (Mass Market Paperback)
Bill Davis is a regular guy who works from home. He's well settled into the small town life of Juniper, Arizona with his wife Ginny and two teenage daughters Samantha and Shannon. Life is good.Then, while jogging, he sees a new sign announcing the arrival of The Store, and their intentions to build on a beautiful meadow outside of town, along Bill's jogging route. This immediately disgruntles Bill, but when he starts to find dead animals and even a dead hobo on The Store's grounds, his disgruntlement turns to a creeping fear. The Store plows into town, overriding building and zoning codes and paying off the city's politicians for favors, promising jobs and prosperity in return. It soon becomes evident to Bill and his friends Ben and Street that The Store wants more than just the town's business; it wants the town itself. The spookiest characters of the story are the Night Managers, though The Store is closed at night. These strange, black clad Managers prowl The Store at night as the lights flicker on and off. During the day, the employees are forced into cult-like obedience, and the shelves restocked with only Store items as one-by-one the local businesses are shut down. Juniper becomes a ghost town. But when the entire city council resigns and are found dead in the parking lot of The Store, and Store Managers are appointed to City Government after The Store has already taken over Parks, Police, and Fire, Bill and his friends have seen enough. Bill, Ben, and Street set out to try and restore their small town, but The Store is not easily fought. It's roots are everywhere, it's contacts cemented by previous court decisions, and to say no to The Store can be fatal. Reading 'The Store' is almost (but only almost) enough to make one appreciate the terrorist tactics of WalMart. Its true that it is impossible to believe that anyone would blindly follow such a Corporate Cult, but that is where Little brings in the eerie Night Managers and the strangeness of Newman King, the sole owner of The Store chain. The Store doesn't want customers. It wants converts. Enjoy!
29 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious,
By
This review is from: The Store (Mass Market Paperback)
Bentley Little was an enigma to me until a few weeks ago, when I thumbed through a few of his novels at the local bookshop. Despite the name association I made with the neighbor from "The Jeffersons," the books looked interesting and I decided to take a crack at a few of them. "The Store" is the first one I decided to read and I am glad I did. What caught my eye were the somewhat cheesy cover and the hilarious description on the back cover. As I read the book, I discovered that the humor goes well beyond skin deep.What surprises me about many of the reviews here is that they miss the biggest point of the story, namely, the humor. This is a wildly funny book. I alternated between chuckles, guffaws, snickers, giggles, hoots, bellows, knee slapping, gut busting, and roaring laughter with this gem of a novel. At first, I wondered if the book is supposed to be funny. I quickly decided that it is supposed to induce laughter. What Bentley Little is writing here is black comedy and satire on an epic scale. One event after another brought me to tears. There are horrific elements here, several which are decidedly unfunny. But overall, this book is the height of amusement. You know a book is good when you laugh out loud later, at weird times and places because you're thinking about the book. You learn to ignore the stares. It's difficult to explain what is funny in a short review. It is the cumulative effect The Store has on Juniper that brings out the chortles. "The Store" takes place in Juniper, Arizona. Juniper is a podunk town out in the boonies. People have to drive to Flagstaff or Phoenix to visit a mall or a discount retailer. All of that changes when The Store arrives. The Store is a national discount chain, along the lines of Wal-Mart or Kmart. About the only person in town concerned about the new store is Bill Davis, a work at home writer who has plenty of time to poke his nose into what's going on in town. Davis has problems with The Store right from the start. The Store violates town rules by destroying the environment on the construction site. Then the dead animals start showing up, along with a transient that dies on the site. Davis is horrified to discover all of this carnage and quickly discovers that The Store is getting special treatment from the city government. When The Store is finally built, even more ominous behavior begins to emerge. The Store uses its clout to run other businesses out of town. Unemployment begins to increase, as does The Store's influence in town government. The Store starts to sponsor activities in town, and they take over city services. People that are hired at the store begin to exhibit cult-like behavior. Bill is horrified when his daughter Samantha takes a job at The Store, followed by his other daughter, Shannon. Bill gets fed up with the increasingly fascist activities of The Store, and decides to confront its CEO, Newman King. The book really builds up to what should be an awesome climax. Unfortunately, the ending is rather anti-climatic. Too many things go unexplained. Who is Newman King? Who are the Night Managers and how do they become what they are? The only conclusion I drew from the story is that The Store and its minions are related to some type of voodoo ritual. But that is never confirmed in any way, shape, or form. Like other reviewers have said, it seemed rushed. It does contain the most shocking scene of the book, however. Bentley Little's goal in this book is to expose the dependence Americans have on retail stores. In his view, Americans will sell out the very ideals of democracy in exchange for cheaper goods. Small towns are especially vulnerable to this type of corporate control because they lack access to bigger markets in a country that thrives on consumerism. These corporations can corrupt even their most dogged opponents, as seen in the book through Bill's meeting with Newman King. It seems that most of us recognize the danger of monopoly and unfettered corporate control. What Little does here is to take that idea and inject it with a huge dose of steroids, and then beat you over the head with the results. This is masterful comedy, so sharp that it could put out your eye. I can't wait to read his collection of short stories and his other book, "The Association," about an out of control homeowners association (which promises even more chuckles). I hope you find "The Store" as entertaining as I did.
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great, fun read!,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Store (Mass Market Paperback)
I was a little wary of this novel at first, because at first it sounded like a copy of Stephen King's "Needful Things". However, it was NOTHING like Needful Things, and had a premise that was just as compelling. It sounds almost hokey to say that the story is about a chain of stores that takes over small, economically-privileged towns in a way that's beyond sinister, but that is indeed the story. I was disdainful at first, but the more I read, the more "into it" I got. Yes, it seems a little far-fetched at times, but is it really? That's what I kept asking myself, along with, "Could this really happen? Can I envision this happening in the future, if things keep going the way they are in this country?" With super-chains like Wal-Mart and Barnes & Noble putting just about every small business OUT of business - and the way we allow it to happen - the things that happen in this book are really NOT that far-fetched. Bentley Little doesn't try to impress with intense prose or complex storylines, either. It's simple, to the point, and very well-written. The guy knows how to tell a story! I highly, highly recommend this book. It's a fun and creepy read that also gives you something to think about.
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