Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore Review

 

*SPOILER ALERT   

Mr. Penumbras 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan has received a lot of praise from many different publications and is also a New York Times bestseller. The story follows the perspective of Clay Jannon, a website designer who lost his job at a startup due to the Great Recession. While trying to find another job so that he can pay his bills, Clay stumbles on a For Hire sign in the window of a bookstore. Upon entering, Clay meets Mr. Penumbra, the eccentric owner of the bookstore who hires him to work the night shift. Although there weren’t many customers, Clay did start to notice some weird things going on in the store. Penumbra instructed him to take meticulous notes on anyone who comes into the store and the people who do come often come at random times and seem to be in a hurry for the next book from the “waybacklist”; which makes up the majority of Penumbra’s store. Over time, Clay starts to unravel the secrets of the bookstore, and they end up being much deeper than he bargained for.  

I’m going to start my review with what I enjoyed regarding the book. I thought that the first half of the book was interesting and beautifully written, and I began to really enjoy reading the book, to the point where I decided to finish the book the first time I started reading it. The plot also had an interesting, mystery-like flow to it and I enjoyed following the characters as they tried to find the keys to the puzzle and trying to guess the answer myself. On top of the overall plot of the book, my favorite part by far had to be the characters. They were all written in a relatable way, with them all being a little weird in their own way, but nonetheless being well-rounded and developed characters. Although some parts of the book were kind of cringy, like Clay trying to get Ashley to be his girlfriend, they all fit the characters and the reader's perception of them perfectly.  

Although there were parts of the book I enjoyed, there is one thing that almost ruined the entire book for me, and that was the way that the mystery was solved. You go through the book almost like a regular mystery book, trying to guess and solve the puzzle yourself, and before the characters can solve it. Rather than feeding into this and finding a twist that will make the reveal rewarding, the book instead relies on a deus ex machina from Moffat, who happens to have already solved the puzzle and then published the solution in his book. So rather than Clay developing as a character and doing something himself, he again relies on the expertise of another person to get the answer. This ending also messed with me because, in again having Clay rely on someone else to be the expert, Sloan prevents Clay from really changing that much by the end of the book, and keeps the idea, at least in my head, that all the things he ended up doing relied on other people, he got help from Grumble, Penumbra, Neel, Mat, Ashley, and even Moffat, who was dead for most of the book. I just believe that the book would have been a more enjoyable read had Clay not solved the puzzle through just reading Moffats book.  

 Overall, I would say that I did enjoy reading Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, even though the plot got predictable at times, and I didn’t like the way Clay solved the puzzle. I would probably recommend this book for teens to young adults. Although the book is extremely interesting and well thought out through the first half, the second half seems rushed and not fully thought out. If you can get past the fact that this book could have been much better had the author taken more time with the second half, it is an interesting concept and an enjoyable read with some great characters and underlying themes.