Review of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
I have to start this review out by saying this was probably the best book I’ve read so far in 2013 but it won’t be for everyone. If you didn’t love it I understand. But this book reached out to me on so many levels I fell in love with it instantly. I’m not sure what it was, but the combination of fantasy, technology, mystery, and coming-of-age just seemed to sum up everything I’m feeling about my life at this point in time I wanted to sleep with this book under my pillow as a security blanket. Do I think you should read this book? Absolutely. Do I think you’ll love it as much as I do? Well, I hope so.
Clay Jannon is both out of college and out of work. 
His former job as the web designer for a bagel start up company is over after the company went under and now he’s wandering around San Francisco trying to find work as his standards start to fall. As he says in the book, he starts out wanting to only work at a company his passionate about, then just one that isn’t evil, and now he’s redifining his definition of evil. Of course it isn’t long until Clay does manage to find a job, just not the one of the career-variety he’s looking for. He’s assigned the night shift at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour bookstore that seems to be doing anything but selling books. The few patrons that do come into the story are part of the shop’s mysterious lending program and come in to take out books one at a time with the kind of fervor that can only suggest one thing to Clay…cult.
As the story begins to unfold Clay finds himself being sucked in to Mr. Penumbra’s world and the behind-the-scenes going ons of the bookstore itself. Which lead him, his millionaire best friend, and newly discovered brilliant googler love interest on the kind of quest only this kind of book can dream up.
Does the ending get a little weird? Yes. Is there an underlying message about how our world need stop resisting and embrace technology immediately or we’ll be living in an antiquated age and never advance? Yes (in fact if it had come on any stronger it would probably have ruined the book).
So what makes this book so great? The writing flows but it isn’t phenomenal. I’ve read better written books. Sloan just creates an atmosphere, a combination of elements that does something great. I know what it’s like to be desperately seeking a job, to wonder if I’ve made the right decisions in my life. To feel like I’m being eclipsed by the people around me at to hope that, some day, I’ll prove them all wrong by being a part of something big. There was also something else though, this isn’t just the story of an out of work college grad. This book managed to capture something of my childhood as 
well. A childhood spent reading horror and fantasy novels and dreaming of adventure and big things. Of hoping that someone I’d get to live out one of those D&D campaigns and go on a quest. Even more than that though, Sloan managed to (and probably without knowing or trying) capture the voice of my favorite childhood author John Bellairs. John Bellairs died the year I was born, which I didn’t realize until I was in middle school and reading the last of his books. After I’d made it through the Johnny Dixon series, the Anthony Monday series, and the Lewis Barnevelt series I went online to find out when the next one would be coming out only to find I’d been reading something that would never continue. Sure the publisher found a new author to try and carry on the series (and yes, I shamelessly buy all of those books too…) but it wasn’t the same. Bellairs wouldn’t be writing any new books. No more mysteries or adventures with characters I’d grown up with. It was all over. I think a part of my childhood died when I realized that.
And then, years later, I stumbled across an author that captured the same voice. The same thing that spoke to me when I was reading a Bellairs book as a pre-teen spoke to me when I was reading Slaon’s novel as an adult. I felt like the adventure wasn’t over yet.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some questing to do.
