Book 30 Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and Shadow of the Wind

 

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan and Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón fulfilled the category “Two Books Set in Sister Cities” for the PopSugar 2022 Reading Challenge. Mr. Penumbra takes place in San Francisco while Shadow of the Wind is set in Barcelona, Spain.

Again, like last week, I’m posting these with two works because I read four for the prompt. I didn’t care for two of them. This time it was Shadow of the Wind.

Here are my thoughts.

I read the novel on audio. We all know I don’t love literary fiction. I’m a genre girl through and through. I like plot and characters rather than high concepts. I spent most of my college career reading pretentious junk that was supposed to be enlightening. Okay, sure, I’m educated now. Sigh.

Shadow of the Wind felt like English 101 homework. The story went nowhere, and the characters were interesting and compelling. But no one did anything. The audio even played lyrical music between some chapters. OMG, really?

I chose these two books initially because they both had a library at the center. What fun to have both sister city books about the same topic—secret libraries. I failed, big time. Shadow of the Wind has a brilliant concept for a secret library with out-of-print books that are covertly stored away. Each person who enters can take one book, and they must keep it safe and secret. That doesn’t happen, and the idea of this amazing library is dropped in favor of a boy’s infatuation for an author. So much so that the kid lives almost the same life as the author.

Anyway, it was too high concept for me. Most of it when over my head, and I no longer have an English professor to tell me what I missed.

On the other hand, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore hit the mark better. But not that much better. The story involves Clay Jannon getting a job at a little bookstore where he works nights. The store is open 24 hours, and sometimes, strange customers come in late at night looking for very specific books. The store is quirky and packed with little-known titles. They hardly seem to do any business. So, bored Clay looks into his odd customers. He’s a computer programmer, and he decides to map the store with a program. What he discovers opens up new worlds for him and unravels the secret of the bookstore.

The story was cute and fun. In the end, though, it was totally Raiders of the Lost Ark. Fun adventure, but nothing mattered in the end. The kid with his program broke the fun.

Anyway, I’m blogging them all here. Sorry to be negative two weeks in a row.

I give Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore Four Obscure Volumes from the Top Shelf.

I give Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón Three Old Novels No One Has Read.