“Neel takes a sharp breath and I know exactly what it means. It means: I have waited my whole life to walk through a secret passage built into a bookshelf.”
From Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore By Robin Sloan
Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
By Robin Sloan
Type of Literature: Realistic/Humor/Adventure Fiction
Why I Like It: What's not to like about a book, about the world of books? Okay - well - actually, that has potential to be really boring. This book, however, is almost everything except boring. As a book lover (as clearly seen in my last blog entry) this book warmed my heart. Not that the main character is a crazy book lover - he's not really much of a reader at all - but everything about this novel screams 'books are magical, read and find out for yourself!' The most wonderful part is that its message (yes, there's an explicit stated theme and strangely I'm more than happy about it) is not beaten over the readers head but woven subtly throughout it. But to get the something a little more concrete. The pacing is good, the characters unique and well developed, and the plot twists and turns into strange and unexpected places. I laughed out loud more than once because of the witty internal dialogue and well-place allusions. I mean, who wouldn't love a character who named his hamster Fluffy McFly? It's beyond me. This book is not just something a book lover should read. I can, without a single reservation, recommend this book to every person I know. It's worth the money (though you can wait for the softcover if you must). More than that, I will most likely read it again - and in a world where I have more books that I want to read than I'll ever find time to read that is saying more than a review ever could.
That sounds like a fun book. Even the fact He Had a hamster. Dad
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