Actual Rating - 2.5

“Walking the stacks in a library, dragging your fingers across the spines -- it's hard not to feel the presence of sleeping spirits.”

Recession has had an impact on Clay. He is a college graduate with no job. He saunters into Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore, and asks for a job. After a couple of days on the job, Clay realises that the bookstore is not all it seems. There are very few customers, and strange people come in and only ever borrow books. Clay is determined to find out the secrets of Mr Penumbra and his bookstore.

I tried so hard to like this, I really did. I had reads loads of great reviews, with people recommending it to those who love books about books. While some of the story interested me, I felt myself getting bored fairly easily. I think maybe the computer and coding talk put me off a lot. It just confused me, and bored me most time. I'm not really that interested in that sort of stuff, so It just didn't appeal to me at all, and one of the main reasons I lost interest so early on in this book.

The characters were ok, but I didn't come to care for them much.

Overall, not really a book that I would personally recommend.