https://killingmykindle.com/2018/08/08/episode-1-29-what-the-fuck-did-i-just-read/ Wherein I review: 111. A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee’s Guide to Saving the World by Rachel Cantor 112. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan 113. The Fold by Peter Clines 114. High-Rise by J.G. Ballard 115. Turbulence (Stone Barrington #46) by Stuart Woods Sometimes your little brain needs to get fried. This was a combo platter of what the f–kery. I enjoyed Robin Sloan’s wonderous cult of personality, and Peter Clines’ Lost-esque pseudo-sequel to 14. Didn’t so much love […]
Friendship is magic
Setting up a mystery is easy, you just present an amount of threads, leaving it to the reader to guess the pattern before, in the end, all the threads are woven neatly together. But this weaving is, of course, the hard part, because the reader has followed all the threads with you and guessed at so many more patterns than the actual book can hold. Mr. penumbra’s 24 hour bookstore was a book with plenty of interesting threads; an old bookstore, mysterious google-stuff, new tech, […]
“People want things to be real. If you give them an excuse, they’ll believe you.”
This was awesome. I think the audiobook made it more awesome. You could hear the tension and excitement in the reader’s voice. You can hear his panic about being unemployed in the beginning, and his furtive whispers as he’s completing tasks that are secretive. Our tale revolves around Clay, who begins his tenure as the overnight clerk at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. This place is awesome. There are regular books for sale, but there are also a vast amount of strange books in shelves that […]
What do you seek?
I have had this one on the bookshelf to read for quite a while and was looking for an audiobook to round out the year, so Mr. Penumbra’s is it. I struggled with my rating, vacillating between 3 and 4 stars. For me this book was uneven, in that some parts I loved, and some left me wanting more, but overall I found it a charming and delightful story, and definitely of interest to book lovers, nerds, the anyone who finds themselves in both categories. […]
I prefer bookstores
“There is no immortality that is not built on friendship and work done with care.” (288). It’s hard to know what to make of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. It’s a quest, it’s a mystery, it’s one man finding himself, and it’s the coalescing of a group of friends. It’s all this and more. Clocking in at fewer than 300 pages, Robin Sloan manages to craft an epic adventure for his protagonist and his merry band of players. And it’s simply delightful. The story is based […]
and now, another Penumbra review
I’m probably the tenth person to review Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore this year on the CBR, but without all those previous reviews I probably wouldn’t have heard about this novel since it’s a bit out of my typical genre. I’m a bit more “chick lit” and “historic fiction” with some YA fiction thrown in the mix. Mr. Penumbra has a bit more of a fantastical element then I look for; I prefer my books a bit more grounded in reality but this was a fun […]