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Summary: FANTASTIC!
Review: The usual from Bentley Little: King-quality characters, butt-kicking horror and a social conscience. What I like about this book (and THE MAILMAN) is that Little stays with the confines of the horror. He doesn't pull a deus ex machina a la King and blow everything up at the end. The Store is defeated using its own techniques (as was the Mailman). He doesn't get much press, but damn if Bentley Little isn't the best horror writer working today.
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Summary: Just don't buy it at Wal-Mart
Review: I have been ahuge fan of Little's since I was first introduced to him through his book "University". I have since found that each of his other books (Dominion, The Mailman, and The Ignored) have each topped the one before it. Now we have "The Store" which is just as timely and horrific as "The Ignored". Once again Bentley rips into the cold heart of corporate America and posits that the most frightening stories are those that are appearing in todays' headlines. What will happen to our country when every industry is owned by one or two faceless mega-corporations that see nothing except the bottom line of their accounting sheets? Bentley Little paints a terrifying image of what could possibly happen.A must read for any genre fan
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Summary: a breath of fresh air
Review: For those in the know, Bentley Little's most recent tour de force, is also his most convincing. Little posits a world of your worst nightmares. His America is an apathetic place, where best friends (and family) sell each other down the road for a few pennies A small Arizona town is corrupted by a corporate monstrosity known only as "The Store". After threatening, cajoling, and bribing the local townspeople, the "Store" takes over. The locals onlyu awake to their peril when it's too late.Little's skill is most apparent when he goes against the norm.The story is unique in it's unwavering hostilityt towards corporate america, while providing both real and anecdotal evidence for its point-of-view This is an extremely subjective view, which I am being forced to endorse, since my town is now under the "Store's" control." "The Store is God,....We Worship Newman King...........
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Summary: terror is open for business!
Review: Little has done it again!He has written a classic tale of terror with a novel twist. A mysterious department store has relocated to a sleepy arizona town and slowly takes it over.Little minimizes the gore and maximitzes the terror.This is one of the most chilling books I've ever read.The terror just creeps up on.The novel's sinister premise is back up with creepy atmosphere and a sense of dread that you can almost feel.You will never forget the store and especially the night managers..
Rating:
Summary: THE STORE IS BRILLIANT!
Review: Scary, funny, sad, poignant, this book has it all. Bentley Little, perhaps the best horror writer working today, is at the top of his game with this darkly satiric work.
Rating: 
Summary: Great beginning but a letdown in the end...
Review: I got hooked when I started reading this book. He writes very well and it goes fast. I recommend this book simply for the uniqueness and fun. However, I thought the ending was rather disappointing, and I was left with so many unanswered questions.
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Summary: If you like Koontz you will love Little
Review: THE STORE is a giant mercantile complex where one-top shopping makes it unnecessary to go anywhere else for your purchases. Juniper, Arizona badly needs new industry to reverse the economic slump destroying the area. THE STORE promises to open up its facility in the town if the local government provides them with the right incentives. The Juniper town council agrees to the terms even as they are all unaware that they have just made a Faustian bargain. Bill Davis is one of the few residents who sense the evil oozing from THE STORE. He tries to warn everyone not to give in to the STORE'S demands, but no one heeds his warning. Employees are required to participate in a strange initiation-like training program if they want to obtain a job. To retain their employment, they must follow an arcane ritual. Anyone who fails to comply is visited by strange beings dressed in black haircoats with pasty while skin. It appears that this battle between good and evil is being won by the forces of the dark. This novel is must reading for Koontz fans as it moves from the mundane to the arcane with astonishing and believable ease. Bentley Little draws the reader into a ride filled with fear, danger, and horror in his seemingly innocent titled novel. However, what makes this story so good is that it can be read on several levels. Besides being a horror novel, Mr. Little makes the case that the global mega-corporations are today's evil incarnate. THE STORE takes Michael Moore's theories of big business and big unions sans humor (ROGER AND ME and DOWNSIZE THIS) and places them into a Koontz-like world that could only have been successfully written by someone with the talent of Mr. Little. Harriet Klausner
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Summary: Darkly satirical, completely twisted fun.
Review: It's a tie with me between Little's The Ignored and this one--Both are great horror novels. The Store is a demented "Little" read, guaranteeing that the reader will NEVER look at a Wal-Mart store the same way again. Unlike some of the other readers who've critiqued The Store, I thought the ending was just. The hero, faced with the ruined remains of his family and hometown, makes the inevitable, logical decision that completely breaks him as a man (and as a father)...but destroys the nemesis in the end. Most horror novels relate to that very classical theme of good vs. evil. The Store's ending, ultimately, worked. I also liked the gradual buildup of the horror. From the dead animals on the site to the disturbing denouement with the hero. The best bits, in my opinion, were the ones involving the various customers, the salespeople and the "buys" (i.e. for those that have read it...the kids and the items on the bottom shelf...need I say more?). Every time the hero had to come in to buy something, the scenes would become more and more demented... A good horror read over a weekend...Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: A great, fun read!
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Three strikes and you're out, Little.
Review: Many reviewers here note that Little seems to have such original material. I too thought that, after reading my first novel, The Resort. Now after reading The Association and The Store, I realize that Little is simply rehashing the same power mongers-turned-evil conspiracy plot ad infinitum, using an annoyingly familiar formula: introduce the clueless, gullible married couple; waste hours on meaningless micro-descriptions of unimportant scenery or characters we'll never see again; let the bad guys take control of our couple in a laughably easy fashion; skeeve the reader out in a manner that is harsh even for this genre; vaguely allude to some "unexplainable" supernatural being or force that never will materialize; then get bored writing and pawn off some hastily and lamely written BS and call it an ending. Voila! Bestselling novel!
Little mocks the reader by not deigning to resolve anything, tie up plotlines, or even imbue the conclusion with as much detail as the rest of the book. He doesn't bother to disguise it as stylish enigma - it is merely "give readers the literary finger" laziness. He is clearly also obsessed with comparing extreme corporate conspiracy with the Nazi takeover of Germany. The three novels I read allude to it, using the black leather uniforms, brainwashing techniques, coercion, extortion, sexual deviancy and rape, roaming police squads, mob mentality, and finally outright torture and murder of all who do not conform. He even uses the word Nazi here and there, and in The Store, subtle Aryan references. Yes, it's a worthy cautionary tale...when Hitler first ran Germany, he did it much like King in The Store. He was welcomed as a champion of the people and public benefactor. The dissolution of this into monstrous insanity was a slow and subversive change that most Germans were either unaware of or too terrified of to fight. Hitler exploited human weakness, greed, peer pressure and our ability to adapt under stress. (The frog in boiling water analogy works here.) I agree with Little's message, that as Americans we need to be vigilant about that happening here, but is this the theme of ALL his books? Come on, show us some diversity! Or is he just out for a quick buck?
If you have read Little's books, you have to admit that there are similarities to the author and his own villains. By all accounts, Little is a recluse, does not easily give interviews, claims not to have access to the Internet (yeah, right), and is known to have zero regard for either critics or fans. Consider each of his books as the literary equivalent of a subversive takeover. It starts out a welcome diversion, exhibits excellent narrative skills, holds our interest...then, just as we've got too much time invested in reading to turn back, the mood suddenly turns ugly. We are subjected to jarringly gratuitous violence and degrading sexual fetishes, until the reader feels unclean but is almost unable to put the book down. Slowly the writing dissolves into amateurish characterizations, pure drivel and insane suspension of disbelief that we know is an insult to our intelligence, but we are paralyzed until the inevitable cop-out ending. I feel Little must be laughing at us all, because by the time we find out his writing is nothing but a tease, leaving the reader zero pay-off to show for his loyalty but an overwhelming need to shower, the author has taken enough money to walk away rich. Have you seen what out-of-print titles are selling for on Amazon? A couple of hundred dollars for used pulp fiction?? One has to wonder if, after publishing a bad review online, one isn't visited in the wee hours by faceless goons working for the author. LOL. And by the way, any man who could write those two tasteless scenes involving Sam (the lingerie and much worse later) with such nauseating gusto must either not be a father, or has some sick fantasy that needs purging. Yecchh. Let's pray he has no daughters.
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