The Society of Unknowable Objects by Gareth Brown

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I saw this one reviewed by a friend and thought it sounded a little like something I would enjoy. I always think a story with the magical hiding among old book shops or on the bottom shelf of a storage unit that was paid in full for 30 years has something that can give a sense of wonder for the things around one in the world.

I wanted that here, but I didn’t get it. The story is well absolutely written, but there was precious little about the actual society, the origin of the objects or how any of the magic actually works. This is a soft world building kind of thing – and that’s also fine, but it just didn’t get me all the way to loving the story.

The main character… didn’t think any number of things through, but I suppose that’s part of what drives the story. As soon as a very spoilery part of the story was revealed, I knew the answer and it took the characters a couple more chapters to figure it out.

It was definitely a fun discussion for our book group!



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