Scan barcode
bookbugbex's reviews
98 reviews
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
3.75
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
Fiction
February 2012 by Atlantic Books
353 pages
February 21-23, 2024
💬 “What do you seek in these shelves?”
📖 Synopsis: Out of work Clay stumbles upon a seemingly ordinary bookstore. He is hired on as a clerk, to do what? He is still trying to figure that out. The store is open 24 hours a day, and he has the night shift. People come in and return a book while asking for the next, he is supposed to take great care in noting their appearance and state of mind when the book switch happens. Clay grows more and more curious about what is actually going on in this 24 hour bookstore. Will he be happy with his findings or will he be disappointed at all the time he wasted.
*may contain spoilers*
🖋️ Review:
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore beautifully blended the old and new, intangible and physical, and magic and reality.
The plot in this novel was so creative. I love when moments of magic are woven into everyday tedium. The bookstore was exactly that, it was a collage of ordinary and peculiar. As the story unfolded the store as well as the characters just grew more and more interesting! There were moments I genuinely wanted to join the order of the Unbroken Spine and was frustrated with Kat and Clay for using technology to solves the puzzles. I also desperately wanted to know what was in the codex, so I was satisfied with their searching, by any means necessary. The characters in this story are so diverse and each play a critical role. The main characters of Mr. Penumbra, Clay, Mat, Neel, and Kat are a rag tag team of curious souls. They each have a special interest or gift that they bring to the table, whether it is their resourcefulness, their pocketbook, or their team at Google, they are an important part of the team. Clay is a great main character. He is so endearingly clueless and dangerously curious. Good thing he has his childhood best friend Neel to ground, who is also now an über successful tech guru with a pretty thick wallet. Clay’s roommates are Mat and Ashely. Ashley seems to be a little irrelevant to the story as a whole, but Mat on the other hand is vital. Mat is a creative genius who specializes in miniature creations or re-creations. Kat also plays a significant role in the storyline. Kat works at Google and happens into the bookstore due to a highly targeted ad created by Clay. Clay quickly becomes infatuated with Kat, while Kat finds Clay very interesting. Kat has a very different arc throughout the story than the other characters and it is interesting to watch her development. My favorite character, by far, though is Mr. Penumbra. He is ultra curious, delightful, and seemingly was born way before his time. Every good story needs a solid villain-esque character, and Corvina plays this role perfectly. He is rigid, powerful, and does not like being tested or questioned.
Most of the story takes place in and around the bookstore in San Francisco. They also got to venture to the Google complex and a few other pretty cool spaces in the city. The team eventually visits New York for a short period of time before coming back to San Francisco.
The whole book is written from Clay’s perspective. This allows us readers to see his companions through his eyes and sometimes naive mind. Clay is a great, reliable narrator, but as stated before, he does have a clueless personality, and that adds to his POV and our reading.
This book feels like National Treasure-vibes but for book lovers!
🌟 - 3.75
Recommendation:
✅ - Do you like solving Suduko puzzles and is The National Treasure one of your guilty pleasures? Then please do yourself a favor and read this book!
Recommended by:
⬅️ - Fabled Bookstore & Cafe in Waco, Texas
🚩Check for potential Triggers!
BookBugBex | StoryGraph | Goodreads
The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center
4.25
The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center
Contemporary Romance
June 2024 by St. Martin’s Press
336 pages
February 23-26, 2024
💬 “That’s just life. Tragedy is a given. There are endless human stories, but they all end the same way. So it can’t be where you’re going that matters. It has to be how you get there.”
📖 Synopsis: Emma, an unknown screenwriter, spends most of her days taking care of her father who had an rock climbing accident 10 years ago. One day Emma’s ex-boyfriend/current manager calls her with a chance of a lifetime! She is invited to help rewrite a screenplay by her all-time favorite writer, except she will have to move from Houston to LA for 6 weeks. She has not spent a day away from her dad since the accident, so she does not make this decision lightly. Meeting her writing hero will change her life, but will it be for better, or worse?
*may contain spoilers*
🖋️ Review:
Life may not turn out how you planned or even hoped it would, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still have your own happily ever after! As with many Katherine Center books, I felt a wide range of emotions. I was intrigued, giddy, annoyed with characters’ decisions, and had both happy and sad tears.
The writing style is a straightforward, first person (Emma) perspective; but straightforward does not mean boring. There is also plenty of unspoken commentary italicized throughout the book that is so great!
Emma is a great lead role/narrator. She is logical, loyal, brave, and selfless. Emma has given up so much of her life and dreams to care for her family. I admire her strength in that. She also can be a little cringe-worthy, but that makes her all the more likable and realistic. Her antagonist/writing hero/crush, Charlie Yates, feels like the typical misunderstood celebrity. He has a hidden heart of gold behind his seemingly giant ego, except his ego seems to shrink page by page. I really love that Jack Stapleton, from Katherine Center’s The Bodyguard makes a few key appearances. If you have not read The Bodyguard, you aren’t missing any important information in this book, but its a sweet nod to her previous work. My only negative comment on the characters in this story seems so silly… I didn’t feel like the characters matched their given names. I can’t even really explain it, but Emma does not feel Iike an Emma, Charlie does not feel Iike a Charlie. Notwithstanding, I love the characters of Emma and Charlie. They give off very much Cameron Diaz and Jack Black vibes to me… I am probably the only person with this random opinion about their names, but there it is, I’ve digressed. Emma’s dad might be my favorite character in this story. He is wise, loving, and giving. He is just a great man and adds so much depth to the story.
The storyline of The Rom-Commers feels so quintessentially rom-com and I love it! Two people, in the same profession, one award-winning and the other just has not found their big break, end up working together and feelings grow… what is more romantic-comedy than that?! The difference in this book is that there are some very heavy elements interspersed throughout their backgrounds and current days. I love that the resolution does not come until a little later in the story than I am typically used to. I found myself unable to put the book down starting around 65% of the way through.
The Rom-Commers is a good solid Rom-Com novel. It has all the right elements, Katherine Center is an auto-buy for me. You know you are going to get a solid story with depth in the characters. Center’s books are never just fluff and/or spice. I genuinely and continually learn life lessons through her stories.
🌟 - 4.25
🌶 - 🍬, no spice, just kissing
Recommendation:
✅ - If you are a Rom-Com girlie, then no reason not to read this book!
Recommended by:
⬅️ - ARC provided by NetGalley
🚩Check for potential Triggers!
BookBugBex | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Instagram
The Widely Unknown Myth of Apple & Dorothy by Corey Ann Haydu
3.25
The Widely Unknown Myth of Apple and Dorothy by Corey Ann Haydu
Middle Grade, Fantasy, Mythology
September 2023 by Katherine Tegen Books
362 pages
February 19-20, 2024
💬 “No one told me that so many feelings were possible at one time, ones that don’t fit together, don’t match at all.”
📖 Synopsis:
Our Hill is a town of modern-day near-gods who are descendants of the ancient Greek gods, nymphs, and muses. Once a year they all must visit Mount Olympus to preserve their near-godliness. One year Dorothy’s mother refuses to climb the ladder, thus forcing the gods to revoke her near-god status and turn her into a full human. She soon dies a human death and Our Hill is forever changed. The gods now deliver a ruthless ultimatum on the rest of the population, return to Mount Olympus and live as gods forever or stay on earth and live as fully human. Everyone now must make a choice.
🖋️ Review:
**May contain spoilers**
**May contain spoilers**
The Widely Unknown Myth of Apple and Dorothy by Corey Ann Haydu is an emotional tale about grief, friendship, consequences, the pressure of family expectations, and ultimately, hope.
Haydu, very smartly, chose to write this novel in dual-perspective. We are able to see this story from both Apple and Dorothy’s points of view. Because these two near-gods are opposites in almost every way, getting to peak inside their mind allowed the reader to see the full story from vastly different vantage points. It is a great reminder that situations, and life, can look enormously different depending on your perspective.
The main characters are young girls, aged 11, named Dorothy and Apple. Their parents play a crucial role in the story and their dynamic as well. Dorothy’s mom was the main connection between the girls. After Penny, Dorothy’s mom, passed they both experienced deep pain and had to navigate how to grieve her. Dorothy’s mom was also grieved by George, Dorothy’s father, and Heather, Apple’s mother and Penny’s best friend. They all handled their grief in different ways; some of it was healthy, and some was not as productive. I loved the different ways they all reacted, I think it shows a true picture how death affects everybody so differently and how important it is to process.
I think that a lot of girls could relate to Apple and her relationship to her mom, Heather. Heather attempts to appear near perfect, in charge, and posh. She passes this enormous pressure down to Apple as well, making her try to live up to Heather’s expectations.
Penny, Dorothy’s mother, on the other hand was a free-spirit, go against the grain, type of character. She pushed all of the buttons and wanted those around her to use their own critical thinking rather than just believing everything they have ever been told.
The differences in the two families compounds as the storyline progresses. The chasm between the two grows until there is really no connection left at all. Apple and Dorothy have a strange friendship that began because the mothers were best friends. The girls relationship was based upon forced proximity. After Penny’s accident, Apple takes charge of her and Dorothy’s friendship and drives them to become best friends themselves. Their friendship begins sweet and healing in many ways, but eventually turns toxic, leading to some choices that have enormous consequences. By the end of the story, thankfully, the girls are able to repair the relationship to a healthy state. I do love that this conclusion is not just a pretty box wrapped in a gorgeous bow. The end result is probably not what either of them would have chosen on their own but they are able to be happy with the outcome.
The Widely Unknown Myth had a very strong and clear plot line, but in my opinion, the story was more character driven. Without all of the nuance of the characters, this story could have easily been a short-story or fable. But because the characters were the main focus, the story was able to be fleshed out into a multi-themed novel.
If you are looking for a book about navigating grief, consequences, and relationships, this is a great choice for you! This would be a great book for many adolescents and adults alike. I would definitely recommend this book for any Mother/Daughter reading duo to be able to talk about complex emotions and situations in a less intimidating way.
🌟 - 3.25
Recommendation:
✅ - very quick read with a ton of digestible life lessons
🚫 - it is quite repetitive, the target audience is middle grade, therefore it is not a literary masterpiece, but a great story nonetheless
Recommended by:
⬅️ - Fabled Bookshop & Cafe in Waco, Texas
🚩Check for potential Triggers!
BookBugBex | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent and Grief