Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

If you follow many Booktubers on Youtube, you may recognise this book. A lot of people started reading it last year so I added it to my Christmas list as a lot of the people I followed recommended it, but once I got it, I never actually got around to reading it! I think I started in the weeks following Christmas but then distracted and never made it past about Page 50... I've been awful with my reading lately and I figured that a book all about bookshops would help kickstart me into doing it a bit more, right? Well, yes in a way, I'm well over halfway through the book now so it's definitely helped me get back into the swing of things, but I was so wrong with what this book is about!

Without giving too much away, this book follows a guy called Clay who started out as a graphic designer but lost his job so, desperate for any work at all, began working at Mr Penumbra's book shop on the late shift. He soon realises that some of the customers that come in are a little bit peculiar and some of the books they are reading are even more so, which leads to him deciding that he wants to find out what's going on.

One thing that really interests me about this book is how heavily Google features in it. Did they sponsor it? Did Robin Sloan work for them in the past? Either way, ever since I watched the film The Internship which I found hilarious, I've taken a real interest in the company and this book unexpectedly helped that interest to grow! One of the main characters, Kat, works for Google and you get an insight into some of the machinery they have and the technological capabilities they're developing - some of it is a bit scary stuff, but it's still super interesting to me. Maybe that's just the tech geek in me coming out!

With this book, I feel like time does not pass consistently enough, and some bits happen really quickly whereas others drag on for a while. Also, some of the dialogue is a bit awkward and I struggled to follow it a bit. However, usually things like that would really put me off but they're part of the reason why I like this book. Even though some of the content is so fantastical, the awkward-ness makes it feel so much more real and I just really like it.

In general, I would recommend this book more to people who are interested in technology than people who are interested in books - but I still think people looking for a book about a bookstore would be interested!