The Society of Unknowable Objects: A Novel
From the author of the internationally bestselling The Book of Doors, another fantastical, stand-alone novel in which a trio of seemingly everyday people are members of a secret society tasked with finding and protecting hidden magical objects—ordinary items with extraordinary properties.
The world of unknowable objects—magical items that most people have no idea possess powers—has been quiet for decades, but the three current members of a secret society have remained watchful, meeting every six months in the basement of a bookshop in London. They are pledged to protect their archive of magical items hidden away, safe from the outside world—and the world safe from them. But when Frank Simpson, the longest-standing member of the Society of Unknowable Objects, hears of a new artifact coming to light in Hong Kong, he sends Magda Sparks—author by day and newest member—to investigate.
Within hours of arriving in Hong Kong, Magda is facing death and danger, confronted by a professional killer who seems to know all about unknowable objects, specifically one that was stolen from him a decade before. Magda is forced to flee, using an artifact that not even the rest of the Society knows about.
Returning to London, Magda learns hers is not the only secret being kept from the other two members. And that the most pernicious secret is about the nature of the Society’s mission. Her discoveries will lead her on a perilous journey, across the Atlantic to the deep south of the United States, now in pursuit of not an unknowable object, but an unknowable person: the professional killer she first faced in Hong Kong. In doing so, Magda begins to understand that there are even more in the world who are chasing these magical items, and that her own family’s legacy is tied up in keeping all these secrets under wraps.
Magic has always been too powerful to reveal to the world. But Magda will learn there might be something even more powerful:
The truth.
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Community Reviews
I enjoyed The Book of Doors, and so I was excited to read this one. I liked the premise, and the book started off being interesting, but as the story progressed, it just didn't work. The villain through the first half was just a generic, non-nuanced bad guy, so reading his part was a bit rough. And then the characters just kept making infuriatingly dumb decisions only to prolong the story. There were a few points where the book could have been way shorter had the characters done the thing that was obviously the thing they should have done, making the writing just feel lazy. Ironically, at the end, one character lightly calls out another character by asking if there could have been a more creative solution that would have fixed everything with a better outcome. But of course, this is just brushed off as nothing, even though, yes, more creativity would have fixed a lot. Instead, we just have this girl who can't control her emotions or think logically, and we're expected to believe she's a good candidate to have control over magical items that could cause catastrophic harm? Literally, her only qualification is nepotism.
There were a few positives. I did like that it was set in the same world as Book of Doors. I prefer more subtlety, so I didn't really need the epilogue, but at least it was short. There were other reveals that I thought were pretty good, too, but they just didn't make up for the other stuff that I found lacking.
I really wanted this book to be better than it was.
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