BOOK 1: Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

[Maggie]

Hi all! This is the thread to discuss September's "required" reading Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. Enjoy!

[Hana]

i have an epub of this if anyone wants! :)

[Hana]

hello, all! i'll kick this off if no one minds. i'm pretty sure everyone's done with the book already and is just ruminating on their thoughts (it's a surprisingly short read). not really sure how to start this discussion properly, but in a nutshell, here are my thoughts:

LIKES:
1. setting--library that is not what it seems with cryptic books and a cryptic owner
2. characters background--lead charac with know-how in design and coding, support charac who works for google, support charac who owns his own company. could be me, could be anyone in our generation. i guess the author was going for that.
3. mix of history, mystery, and, wouldn't you know it, typography--you've got me, i'm in, goooood shit right here, that's pretty much the secret combo.
4. technology vs. the snobs--a welcome theme in any story. i just love it when oldies realize what they're missing and what they can achieve if only they kept an open mind.

DISLIKES:
just one, but it sums up everything that i feel about this book. despite the really exciting premise, the story just fell kind of flat. it felt like having a set of expensive ingredients and messing up the mixing part so the end result is something unremarkable. what really got me was how anti-climactic the mystery-solving was. when clay explained how he solved the code, i couldn't help but think, "that's it?"

the book could have been an exciting read, but it just... wasn't. there were good moments, yes. the museum with the moving shelves was fascinating, the decoding session in google was exciting. there were all these good separate pieces in the story, but when taken together, it just didn't gel well together.

and that's my two cents. now discuss! :)

[Rachel]

I totally agree with most of what you said, Hana, and I'll write up more of my thoughts later, but just quickly: while I absolutely love the ~fusion of the old and the new~ as a theme I thought it really did not work here as well as it could have. The fact that the characters had unlimited funds and resources and could google their way out of anything really eliminated a lot of the potential tension - you knew that no matter what everything would work out okay in the end, and it made for dull reading.

[Julia]

Dammit, I had a nice long review typed up and my browser crashed.

I would have to agree with y'all on the book being kind of a letdown. I was really intrigued by the ideas in the book but it seemed like the author was just telling us everything without trying to create a tone or build up any tension, though I guess that given it's supposed to be the main character telling us all about what happened it makes sense. Also was not a fan of the author's fumbling attempts at absurd humor.

I have a couple of personal pet peeves that got in the way of my enjoyment of the book, too. First-person is REALLY not my thing, and I found it oddly reminiscent of Ready Player One (which I loathe beyond description.)

Uh, I don't want my review to sound like I found Mr. Penumbra totally horrible and unreadable. The premise was super interesting, and the book replication in particular was neat, and I enjoyed most of the secondary characters. The writing just fell a bit flat for me.

[lady h]

I couldn't get through the book, honestly. I got up to page 63 and could go no more.

I agree that the book fell flat in a lot of ways; the plot had intrigued me very much, but the execution of it all was rather dull.

The character of Kat read like a Manic Pixie Dream girl from the moment she was introduced, and the narrator constantly talking about how beautiful she was and how how much he wanted to date her was just really grating right off the bat.

[Chelsea]

I agree with a lot of what Rachel and Hana had to say about this book. I did generally like it, but it never quite lived up to the promise of its description. Secret cryptic clubs and codes! Technology! Google! Bookstores! Surely a combination of all of those things should be more exciting right? Instead I found it oddly flat, particularly in the everything tied up neatly in a bow ending. It was almost like reading fluff fanfic. Cute and enjoyable enough while you're reading it, but forgettable with no real depth behind it or tension in the story.

Things I liked:
- Mr. Penumbra (the character) I found interesting as well as the personalities and traits of the readers.
- Clay's initial job search in a crappy economy and how your standards for employment slip as you go on is very easy to relate to sadly
- Love the idea of fusing technology and books/libraries and that they can co-exist side by-side. This really resonates for me because I've worked in a bookstore and have a degree in library science, but I work in a corporate library so I primarily do research using internet databases.

[Rebecca]

I wish I could say I enjoyed the book. Like others, I found the premise intriguing and the execution lacking. The author introduced several conflicts, but offered resolutions quickly and without any real tension on the reader's part.He frequently writes in a way that suggests he's building up to a big moment, but the moment itself falls flat. Sentences that are clearly meant to be cliffhangers "the face was penumbra" etc... failed to grip me, and the writing occasionally had me rolling my eyes "his eyes matched his sweater. They were also blue."

Kat's characterization particularly bothers me, though I'm not sure she's objectively less well-rounded than any of the other characters. I very well might simply be more sensitive to poorly written female characters than I am to poorly written male ones. That said, I got the same vibe as Samar, Manic Pixie Dream Girl from start to finish.

I really wanted to like this book, as I usually love stories that combine mystery, history, and a love of books. I'd love to try another in the same genre sometime!

P.S. quotes are paraphrased- I do not have a copy of the book anymore

[Maggie]

Hi everyone!

I agree completely with everything everyone has said. The first 60 pages or so had promise and then it really didn't go anywhere. Every moment felt like it was trying too hard to set up drama that never materialized.

I never rooted for Clay. He was so vanilla to me. Penumbra definitely interesting but he had nothing to work against.

Corvina was supposed to be a hulking nemesis but his actions never lived up to the image he was supposed to fill and his motivations were never explained so he was left with an "I am villain because I am" feel.

The women were all cardboard cutouts. Kat is the girlfriend who is half (as Rebecca and Samar said) manic pixie dream girl/half Gone-Girl-esque Cool Girl. I can't name one fact about her other than she works at Google and likes to wear the same outfit every day. Clay doesn't even really seem that into her. Then you've got the female roommate who is called a "robot" and is never seen or heard from again after she becomes the love interest for a man. Then there's the ONLY woman customer at Penumbra's who is silly and likes romance literature. Then best of all you've got "North Face", the stripper with (maybe? potentially?) a brain. Even after he learns her name he calls her North Face.

Regarding the plot: I saw the ending coming from the first mention of immortality. They live on through their words. Such a cliche.

I also don't understand the general premise of the Unbroken Spine. Was it supposed to the act of breaking the code that was supposed to prove your worthiness? Were they supposed to achieve immortality by just breaking the code or was the unbroken code supposed to give steps to achieve immortality? Maybe this was just a fail in my reading but it is a question I have. Only if it's the first option do Corvina's actions make sense to me but I feel like it must be the second...

A question I want to pose: were we supposed to think that Google was a good thing and that Clay & Penumbra was right to want to crack the code quickly?

As Julia said, I'm sorry that this sounds like it was unreadable because it wasn't. It just felt like wasted potential. I felt like there was a story there but what it became wasn't worth the time.

[Rebecca]

Maggie reminded me about "North Face", and I'd like to echo that sentiment hardcore. A woman who works as a stripper AND reads books??? SO SURPRISING AND UNIQUE. WHAT A TWIST!!!!!!!!!! But don't worry though because she's saved from sex work in the end, thanks to Clay. Ughhhhhh.

[K✨]

hey folks! i pretty much agree with what everyone else has said about the book so far--it's been nearly a month since i read it and details are fuzzy (i didn't take many notes while reading, plus the book didn't make much of an impression on me, so.) so forgive me if i mix anything up in this discussion!

when i first saw that the author was robin sloan, i was under the impression that he was a woman, so i was pretty excited to read! i like books about books and (shamefully) dan brown-esque stuff, all of which this book promised. but i tend to be wary of books by white, technology-obsessed men, and this book gave me yet another reason to be wary! i guess clay was supposed to be an ever-relatable everyman type, but mostly i found him pretty boring and vapid, and also the tone/voice just didn't work for me. it felt very amateur. that said, i did think penumbra was an interesting character--i wish the book had been about him!

my biggest issue with this book was the casual sexism. it never ended! like you have all already pointed out, the stuff with the stripper (who clay immediately disparaged, of course) and the roommate was just disgusting, and i was so irritated by the way clay talked about kat. like, as soon as he met her, he was more focused on the fact that he wanted to date her than that she's kind of a coding genius who works at google, which should be impressive, but imo clay really downplayed that. and the one female member of the unbroken spine, despite, like kat, being a woman of immense intelligence, was constantly disparaged for her weird quirks rather than them being a cool part of her character as they were for the men who shopped at penumbra's. along the same lines, i groaned in real life when clay's friend was revealed to be the number one expert in "boob physics". like, did you even try? i guess it was supposed to be funny, but the book's attitude toward women really left a sour taste in my mouth, especially when everything comes together really neatly at the end and clay and kat are back together and the roommate and the stripper are all working at clay's new enterprise...ugh. it felt like these women only had worth when clay assigned it to them, even kat, who goes on to be in a magazine and an expert in her field in her own right. whereas of course clay's friend the boob physics guy is never questioned about his expertise, and neither is mat.

and like some of you have already said, the idea of this book was appealing, with the mix of old and new technology and secret codes, etc. and since this had been on lots of year-end best lists, i thought it might not be so bad. but i'm honestly wondering what people see in it for it to garner so much praise! it was a fairly enjoyable, fluffy read, minus the sexism (which, granted, is a HUGE minus) but i didn't think it was anything special. maybe i wanted to hate it or something, i don't know.

and now i think my 3-star rating may have been a bit too generous lol. i don't know. i really can't state enough how much i wish this book had been about penumbra instead of boring clay. alas.

[Olivia]

hey guys! i have to agree with everyone else here that this book was super disappointing. i was also intrigued by the premise and thought it started off well - especially since i found myself relating to clay as someone who feels they have no skills and life purpose compared to their peers (whoops) - but it lost a lot of steam about halfway through and ended up falling really flat. i was completely puzzled by the ending, and i'm still not sure what, exactly, the narrative climax was meant to be. it felt like sloan was attempting some sort of dan brown-esque finish but imo failed in every possible way.

i don't think i have to elucidate my thoughts on the pervasive sexism in this book since everyone else has pretty much voiced all the complaints i had. "boob" physics, really...? ugh.

i thought i would end up gravitating towards penumbra, who seemed like he'd get a big secret or interesting past revealed, but sloan did absolutely nothing with the character; he had so little backstory and, in the end, really was everything he appeared to be on the surface. (which is how i can probably sum up the book in general.)

i did really appreciate the message that old & new/books & technology can work together in harmony (which is a rare one these days), but that's basically where my admiration of the book ends.

[Rachel]

I couldn't agree more with what everyone's saying about the casual sexism being a huge turn off. like kristen I thought robin sloan was going to be a woman so I was pretty exited for that, but not only did we get a white male author, it really, really showed. this whole book read like a teenage geek boy's fantasy, which... is hardly groundbreaking in this genre which has so much potential for innovation.

maggie, to answer your question about the unbroken spine, I got the impression that breaking the code would allow them to achieve immortality? like, bam, code broken, immortality achieved. that's how I read it, but I did think this was ambiguous... and if this is the case corvina's disdain of technology makes zero sense to me because why would he want to prolong ~the quest~ when the answer is potentially at their fingertips...?

as for your second question, I think the ~moral~ was that we should absolutely embrace technology (and root for clay and penumbra using it to achieve their goal) but we can't discount human nature and the fallibility of machines, i.e., technology is great and should be used whenever possible, but it isn't always possible to use it.

was anyone else disappointed that the contents of penumbra's book weren't examined? I agree with everyone else, I thought he was definitely the most interesting character, and I thought some of the ~enigma surrounding him would be explained by the contents of his book, but I was totally let down. it sort of gave me the impression that even sloan didn't really know what he was trying to do with this character, it felt like all smoke and mirrors.

[Maggie]

Hold on, another thought - did Corvina not want people to crack it because he knew that it was going to be a disappointment? Or am I giving him too much credit?

[Chelsea]

Rachel, I was sorry we didn't get some information on the contents of Penumbra's book too and I agree that it gave the impression Sloan didn't entirely know what he was doing with the character. I think he was trying for enigmatic, but because the leading characters were so two-dimensional and the story lacked tension and depth, it would have been really nice to see more of Penumbra's character explored, especially through the contents of his book as we got further into the story. It felt like a missed opportunity. I think there would have been more leeway to leave a character mysterious if this was the first book of a trilogy or series for example where you can add depth in later books but in a standalone novel, like Olivia, I was expecting some kind of reveal about his past or the contents of the book and we never got that pay-off.

HUH there appears to be a prequel companion piece about the younger Penumbra and his introduction to the store: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

[ashley]

Clay Jannon is a super geeky and super smart gamer dude (but he's really nice and likeable if you'd just give him a chance). He has been a moderately successful computery person in the recent past, but he's really modest about it, don't worry. Now his talents are being underused at a mysterious bookshop and he's met three new people in the past month(!)

1. A walking manic pixie dream girl trope named Kat. She's smokin' hot and wildly ambitious and practically a genius (even though she's a girl!). She's used to make Clay seem like an attractive protagonist and for her totally happenstantial dream job at Google, but pay no attention to that. Also she has boobs. Yay.

2. A two-dimensional new roommate named Ashley; who just so happens to be a perfect romantic match for Clay's uber-talented prop-maker other-roommate Matt. Matt himself is used for his art skills and only really mentioned like twelve times.

3. Clay's boss, the international manic pixie man of mystery himself: Mr. Ajax Penumbra. Penumbra is the coolest antiquarian bookseller in town (he even embraces NEW TECHNOLOGY and owns a kindle) but, just like his bookshop, he has COUNTLESS SECRETS. Mysterious.

Join Clay and his ramshackle team of hot nerds and rich genius best friends as they embark on a risk-free adventure to crack the uncrackable code of an ancient literary cult, for no real reason whatsoever.

Will unlimited funds, brains, and technology be enough to allow these bored young adults to overcome the disapproving glances of Mr. Penumbra's current cult leader/former best friend? Will Mr. Penumbra's mystery book of no significance be burned? Will Clay and Kat hook up????

Read if you dare.

[Rachel]

ashley - SPOT ON.

maggie - like you said when we were texting I think we may be giving sloan too much credit with this, BUT I think it's possible - obviously it was possible that others had already solved it since moffat did so maybe corvina knew the whole thing was crap and didn't want it cracked to dissuade others from staying in the society...? or at least, it's interesting to think that might have been the case if sloan had fleshed out his characters a bit more and made their goals and desires clearer. corvina is such a cardboard cutout of a villain.

chelsea - I cannot BELIEVE that a prequel exists omfg. is anyone in here brave enough to try it???

[Hana]

@ashley: damn, that is a sick burn if i ever read one.

i think we're all in agreement here that the big let-down was that the story was risk-free and had no real conflict. clay could have failed to solve the code, he could have let penumbra's book burn, he could have gotten the hell out of the situation entirely, and his life wouldn't have been affected at all. there are no important things at stake. he undertook the quest just because of his genuine care and curiosity towards mr. penumbra, which was--ok--a little charming, but not really enough to convince the readers. there wasn't a moment where the characters were truly, truly desperate and grasping at straws.

[Rachel]

omfg I JUST remembered the other thing I wanted to comment on - the humor. even though this wasn't a comedy it was obviously meant to be quite humorous with clay as the Everyman relatable narrator, but I found myself cringing at sloan's attempts at humor more often than not. there were a couple of genuinely funny moments but I mostly felt like the humor in this book was just off, like sloan was reaching to a specific demographic (i.e., young adults who are obsessed with technology) and trying to tell jokes that would appeal to this particular crowd but just failing to nail it, like when you copy a sentence into google translate... you can still understand what it says, but it's obviously not something a native speaker would say. did anyone else get this impression or did you find sloan's/clay's sense of humor relatable?