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

Title: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
Author: Robin Sloan
Genre: Mystery/Fantasy
Publisher: Picador

"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 Clay soon 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 it's walls. 

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

Let me be completely honest here -- I don't think I remember the last time I was this disappointed with a book before. 

While the previous book I reviewed also turned out to be a disappointment, this book was an even bigger disappointment. Given the highly positive reviews it has received and after reading the blurbs on the front and back covers, I was expecting to be absolutely blown away at the end of it. Unfortunately, the book felt flat throughout, and I do have some problems with it, too.

First, I felt that the characters lacked development. They weren't really very relatable, and lacked depth that would make you sympathize with them. One character in particular, Kat Potente (Clay Jannon's love interest), was just plain annoying. The only character I actually (somewhat) liked was Mr. Penumbra himself. He somehow reminds me of Albus Dumbledore, except he lives in the non-wizarding world and does enjoy tinkering with his Kindle.

The biggest let-down for me, however, lies in the story itself. While the book seems to present itself as a mystery novel, the characters were never really in any grave danger to leave readers hanging on to their seats. Everything was just too convenient for the characters, too, especially for Clay Jannon. The unemployed Clay needs to fly to New York? No problem! His filthy-rich childhood friend can pay for his plane tickets. Clay needs a scanner to scan some books that contain weird codes that need deciphering? Well, he can just easily purchase one from the internet. Clay now has to decipher these codes after scanning the books? Well that's easy--his girlfriend just happens to work for Google and has access to all sorts of machinery to figure out these codes! 

Now, I don't really bother finishing books that fail to impress me early on, but I still decided to hold on to this book thinking it would get better at some point (given the blurbs and all the hype, how could you not give this book a chance?). However, as I reached the end, I couldn't help but think, "Really? That was it?". The ending was just so overly simplistic and wasn't something I would play in my head over and over long after I've put the book down. The plot was so weak and difficult to follow. I knew there were certainly some parts of the story that were never really properly explained. At first I thought maybe I just really wasn't paying enough attention, but I really couldn't figure out the connection between why those books had all those codes that needed deciphering and the "big reveal" at the end. What was the real purpose behind those mysterious customers' visits to the bookstore? How were they really expecting to break the code by moving from one book to the next? Why do the members of The Unbroken Spine (the cult-ish group to which Mr. Penumbra belongs) have to write their own memoirs that are eventually translated into code? Who translates these into code? And why does it have to be coded? It's an absolute mess!

Overall, the book just felt like one big advertisement for Google (the Google-worshiping gets really annoying after a while), so much so that the author didn't bother to properly develop the characters and the plot. If you're thinking of buying a copy for yourself, do NOT let the blurbs and the hype fool you. You might be better off reading something else instead.