This book seemed thrown together and underdeveloped. I thought it was an interesting concept at first but the more I read the book the more I disliked it. ( )

It is the year 2041. A planet called Paradox has been discovered, and is shown to be equal to Earth in all respects. With great excitement, a landing party is sent to explore and set up a new civilization. Within a short timeframe, members of the research team get sick from a mysterious illness and begin to die.

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When I set out to read Paradox, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. All the cover could tell me is that it involved a girl who couldn’t remember herself and a giant worm. And indeed it did involve this, and a whole lot more.

Paradox is about Ana, a girl who has no memory of her past and wakes up on an alien planet, Paradox, with a pack full of survival gear, a high tech watch equipped with a map and a timer counting down, and instructions to reach a certain point before the timer reached zero. Zero means sunsmeet, the violent and deadly reaction when the two suns of Paradox cross paths. But something isn’t quite right on Paradox; Ana keeps getting odd glimpses of memory, the companions she finds seem to know more than they claim, and all the while, a giant alien worm bent on devouring them follows them across this supposedly uninhabited planet. The very landscape seems to warp as her companions are killed off in mysterious ways, and when sunsmeet happens… well, I won’t spoil the twist, but I can assure you, it is big.

Paradox was definitely an interesting read, but it felt disconnected and scattered at times.
It’s a long time, more than halfway through the book, before certain things that didn’t make sense in the beginning start to tie in, and it was in a way didn’t mesh well with me. The lost memory device I find is a little overused, and though it does make sense in the context of the book, I still found it jarring when Ana had a revelation in the style of “Oh, that totally makes sense because I just remembered that it did.” However, I still did enjoy the book. I was enraptured by the vivid descriptions of this alien landscape and compelled to keep reading to find out what would happen to Ana next, what she would discover.

If you’re looking for a quick read with a sci-fi/mystery flavor, I’d definitely recommend you have a look!

Jessica G., SC Teen Book Crew

***

Proxy, by Alex London, is set in a futuristic dystopian Denver hundreds of years in the future. The society is the only civilization on the continent and runs on the “proxy” system where the rich own the poor’s debt and the poor take the rich’s punishments. Syd is a poor citizen living a boring and terrible life because his “patron”, Knox (a rich person), is basically a criminal. One day Knox accidentally goes too far when he kills a girl and can’t face the consequences. This event threatens to ruin both of their lives and forces Syd and Knox to see the truth behind their society.

I loved how London isn’t afraid to include a homosexual main character. It helps make the story more interesting and also gives insight on how someone’s sexuality doesn’t change who they are. The best part of the book by far was how the author presents and describes the city throughout the story. The description is so intricate and seamless that I could basically see London’s futuristic world before me. Proxy gave me a whole new view on how society works and showed me that everything really does come with a price.

For fans of Legend, and other dystopian thrillers, Proxy is the book to get!

Ryan W., SC Teen Book Crew

Leave it to A.J. Paquette to take the dystopian novel and turn it on its head. In PARADOX, Ana has recently woken on a strange, barren planet, with little other than her name (which she only remembers because of a tag pinned to her suit). Her mission? To survive.

Ana's memories are gone, and as she begins her trek toward she's not sure what, she's sure she's alone. But it's not long before she realizes she's, in fact, not the only living creature here. There's a giant, worm-like creature, seemingly in pursuit of her, and as her fear heightens, so does her determination to make it out alive. But the worm isn't the only other life here. There's a boy, dressed in the same suit as her, presumably from the same ship as her, who says he knows the way to the colony, where there are other people and supplies. Ana knows they should team up, but she has reservations. When there are no memories to guide you, who can you trust? And what is real?

PARADOX is a gripping novel of survival against the odds, and of the persistance of the human spirit. This is a book that will keep you reading until the middle of the night, straining to keep your eyes open, hoping you can get in just one more chapter. A new twist on dystopia? A.J. Paquette totally nailed it. ( )