Review: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

1 star for Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.

I have always been envious of people whose jobs allow them close proximity to libraries or bookstores and needless to say, books. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I read this novel for it gives me the perception of possessing the control to close the distance between myself and bookstores, at least for the duration of my reading.

The novel kicks off on sympathetic grounds with economic downturn leading to the protagonist, Clay Jannon, being made jobless after less than a year of employment as a website designer in a startup bagel shop located in San Francisco. One day, as he follows the HELP WANTED signs on display windows, he suddenly finds himself the legitimate employee of Mr. Penumbra, owner of a 24-hour bookstore. Oh, how I will love to swap places with Clay, to work in a bookstore, never mind that his is almost a graveyard shift.

Mr. Penumbra's bookstore, though operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is not opened around the clock to cater to demands of overwhelming customers. In fact, book buyers are so rare that Clay feels more like a night watchman than bookstore helper.

Clay soon learns that Mr. Penumbra's bookstore is, in fact, two stores in one; the normal bookstore with new and shiny books up front and the not-so-normal bookstore dominating the back half of the - real - store with old and dusty backlists which caters to an exclusive clientele.

Together with the three creepy job requirements agreed to on his day of hire, Clay finds himself lending strange books to strange scholars in the middle of the night. In time, Clay realises that the bookstore he is working in is no ordinary bookstore but something more. Then out of the blue, Clay is asked to go on a quest to unlock secrets. Lost ancient secrets.

The story starts out promising with an air of mystery about a bookstore that never sleeps. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a downhill journey as I travel alongside the characters. In my opinion, the author has great ideas on writing a story with a bookstore as the backdrop but somehow somewhere along the way, that focus is lost together with poor character development.

When our lead character, Clay, meets up with Kat, a bright and bubbly girl who works in Google as a data visualisation programmer, to discuss about extracting information from the bookstore logbooks, I have a premonition that it is going to be over for me. True enough, from that point on, the plot revolves around Google at best and evolves into an advertisement for Google at worst. Well, I am proud to say that I manage to pull through another seventy pages or so of the paperback before closing the book on Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore.

Frankly speaking, I want to like this book. I really do. But sometimes we have to choose between turning the page and closing the book, in which case, I know I have tried my best before deciding on the latter at slightly less than halfway mark of the book. For that matter, this book becomes a Did Not Finsh in the strict sense of the word. So I flip to the last couple of pages, get done with reading and pass it off as finished with large chunks of text skipped.

Finally, I like to say all is not lost. I do like the book cover. See those vertical, horizontal and slanting yellow rectangular blocks that represent books on a bookshelf? They glow in the dark!

Publisher: Picador
Publication date: 24 Sep 2013

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The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.

But after a few days on the job, Clay discovers that the store is more curious than either its name or its gnomic owner might suggest. The customers are few, and they never seem to buy anything—instead, they “check out” large, obscure volumes from strange corners of the store.

Suspicious, Clay engineers an analysis of the clientele’s behavior, seeking help from his variously talented friends. But when they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, they discover the bookstore’s secrets extend far beyond its walls.

Rendered with irresistible brio and dazzling intelligence, Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is exactly what it sounds like: an establishment you have to enter and will never want to leave.

*Blurb from Goodreads*

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