Title: Curioddity
Author: Paul Jenkins
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 312
Rating 4/5
This was an interesting little read for me because it isn’t a book that I picked out for myself. Instead, it was sent to me as a belated birthday gift from my BookTube friend Time for Books. In fact, I think it was a thrift shop find and so that makes it my first official thrift shop book. Awesome!
This is a sort of humorous magical realism book, and it reminded me of what The Shadow of the Wind could have been if the author hadn’t disappeared up his own arse. We follow the exploits of a private detective who’s hired to work for the Museum of Curioddity, which houses all sorts of unusual artefacts. He’s actually hunting down a missing box of levity, which is the opposite of gravity.
What was cool about this was the idea that this magic is all around us, and we just need to un-see what we’re looking at if we want this entire hidden world to be revealed to us. It also played with ideas about fate and destiny, as well as the power of narrative in the sense that the characters would often find themselves in just the right place and they’d remark on the fact that the only reason that happened is that it had to happen.
It’s very tongue-in-cheek and reasonably accurately described on the rear cover as a cross between Lewis Carroll and Douglas Adams. I’d argue that it’s more like Douglas Adams with Terry Pratchett, but Pratchett is one of my favourite authors and so I was down with that. Sure, there were occasional bits here and there that fell a little flat, but I think you’re always going to have that with a humorous book. I’d recommend it for sure.
