'Curioddity' by Paul Jenkins is about a hapless drone who wanders in to a weird world full of the kind of luck you have when you can unsee the world around you.

Will Morgan has a dead end job, but it's not the one his father wants him to have, so he takes a little comfort in it. His routine takes him to the same coffee place where they mess up his order, and into the same office building with an elevator that reeks. He is terrorized daily by the local clocktower.

One day, and odd little man with an odd museum pays him a visit and offers him a job to find a missing artifact. Without a clue as to what he is looking for, Will's life takes random turns that change his life. Armed with an untrustworthy cell phone and an assortment of random items, Will is ready to take on the world.

I kind of liked this book full of wit and wonder. At first, I wasn't sure, but I was won over by the end.

I received a review copy of this ebook from St. Martin's Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

This reads as if it's intended to be an episode of Doctor Who, or a cousin of To Say Nothing of the Dog, but Jenkins' writing tries too hard, is overly cutesy, is at times schmaltzy, and simply doesn't work. Protagonist Will Morgan has a dull life, really, really dull, we get it, seriously dull, mope, mope, mope. Until. Until he stumbles upon a Magic Place, run by an inscrutably bizarre proprietor, and then he finds a manic pixie dreamgirl, and eventually there will be aliens and madcap mayhem, and Full-Scale Whimsy, and Hearts Will Be Healed. What Jenkins is going for is obvious. What's more obvious is that he doesn't get there this time. He hits all the major points, but the journey is arduous. This is a debut novel, though, and it does fly along, even though it grates. Nowhere to go but up.

For the first few pages of this book, I thought I was going to love it. It had that certain kind of instantly-recognizable British humor that I tend to enjoy. But trouble soon arrived, in the form of the realization that nearly every single line in the book is snarky-clever, in a way that's quite over-the-top and not at all balanced with any other mode. A number of lines taken alone are each impressive, but when thrown at you relentlessly, and irrespective of whom the main character Will Morgan is speaking to at any given time, they all become so much word salad. I've learned that the author is primarily a comic book writer. Perhaps he was so excited to give primacy to word over image that he went a bit overboard.

Beyond the style of humor, the Britishness of this book was actually a problem in itself, because it is set in a (nameless?) American city. There are a great many expressions and turns of phrase that Americans simply would not use. This is a serious editorial blunder. But since the author is British, why not just set the thing in Britain?

And then there are the characters. Also problematic. Will is rather inscrutable, however much he's ostensibly the "regular" person discovering the magical. (Note I did not say the fantastic; this book is way more Magical Realism than Fantasy -- somewhat of a problem if one is expecting Urban Fantasy, based on the description). He's apparently very intelligent, but one wouldn't know it from the bum way he lives and works. He's defined by the early death of his mother and the subsequent dominion of his stick-in-the-mud father. His feelings toward his mother, a scientist cum Manic Pixie Dream Girl, clearly inform his attraction to new girlfriend Lucy (although girlfriend -- the word explicitly used in the book -- is a strong word for someone you've literally just met). Lucy is absolutely more MPDG trope than person, and also viewed through a surprisingly sexual lens. She was so poorly written, I couldn't stand her.

The Curioddity Museum itself is a little bit disappointing, where I was expecting it to be a highlight. I think this comes down to the Magical Realism V Fantasy divide. Everything in the museum is just to the side of science (e.g. the perpetual Emotion machine). Cute, but it only goes so far.

My favorite parts if this book were whenever we encounter the villain, an unscrupulous millionaire media figure who is trying to buy the land on which the Curioddity Museum sits so that he can expand his empire. The plot of the book, in fact, revolves around Will being tasked by the museum director to stop this from happening. The villain presents the only real (and believable) darkness here, a good antidote to the naiveté otherwise displayed.

The point of this book is ultimately about discovering "magic" all around you by having the right attitude about life. I'm all for positive messaging, but this is not only naive, it's also not what most adult readers of fantasy fiction would knowingly sign up for.

The book is a bit of a slow starter, but with rich descriptions and quirky humor it tells an interesting tale.

Skip the Twee Parts, Keep An Eye Out for Lucy, and You'll Have A Good Time

I suggest that if you hang in through the first few chapters of this book you'll end up being entertained. Our hero, Will, is introduced to us as not only a sad sack but as a tedious, morose, and deeply uninteresting and self-involved sad sack. O.K., you think, the hero has to be down so we can watch him rise up. Just when that seems to be a burden too far, Mr. Dinsdale, the curator of the Curioddity Museum, shows up with a job offer for Will. Aha, you think, now we're cooking. Well, Mr. Dinsdale is just so twee, precious, and affected that he feels like the result of an overacting competition among Johnny Depp, Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, and Gene Wilder at their hammiest.

But then the darnedest thing happens. Will starts to loosen up and Dinsdale begins to settle down. A plot materializes, and a quest of sorts and some action enter the picture. At about this point Will comes across Lucy, the proprietor of Lucy's Magic Shop, and she is just the manic, pixie, dream girl that Will, and we, need. Up to that point there have been some funny lines and a few amusing set pieces and a couple of clever plays on words, but they all seemed to be forced or awkward, and not in the service of very much. Once Lucy appears, the dialogue gets snappier, the plot hums along, the incidental characters make more sense, we don't have silly curiosities just to fill up pages, Will stops being such a load, and the whole thing comes together as a madcap, screwball magic comedy. Alright.

By the end I was happy I'd stayed for the whole show. It just kept getting better, and ended on a high entertaining note. Go figure. (Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)