2.5 - I recommend this book if you enjoy contemporary fiction, with a secret society, solve the code, kind of vibe to it. It is very light hearted.

This book follows Clay, a young man in need of a job. The recession has hit, and he finally finds a new place of employment: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. He quickly notices that this is not just any bookstore. There a frantic customers who request books from the "way back list", and check them out with special member cards. Clay investigates what's going on in the bookstore with his muti-talented friends. What is Mr. Penumbra up to?

I had a hard time getting into this book. I liked the setting and quirky characters, which made it quick enough to read... but all of the tech-related descriptions really through off the flow of the book for me. I'm not a techy person. Normally a book with codes and secret societies might be just a little bit serious or dark. This book is neither, which made the mystery seem a bit unimportant. I didn't find myself caring what the society was up to. I also didn't love the fact that most of the early on pieces of the puzzle are solved by using power technology. I'd rather read about clever people who know clever things and solve clever puzzles. Not because they have access to Google's super computers. So, toward the end, it got a bit more interesting to me. There was a bit less of the technology, but it took too long for me to fully appreciate it. I did enjoy the characters through the end, and things related to the bookstore itself. By the time I got to the end of the book, I wasn't invested in the mystery, and then when everything was revealed, it felt anticlimactic. I think I'm in the minority on this one, but it just wasn't my jam. I would rather have read about Clay and the quirky people he observes in the bookstore.

Right after reading:

I just didn't love this... : /