Eliot Sappingfield

Thirteen-year-old Nikola Kross's world is turned upside down when her father is abducted by aliens and she is suddenly transported to a special boarding school for geniuses, but things get even stranger when she realizes she has certain abilities that put her entire school in grave danger.

A Problematic Paradox

Nikola Kross has given up on living in harmony with classmates and exasperated teachers- she prefers dabbling in experimental chemistry to fitting in. But when her life is axially inverted by a gang of extraterrestrials who kidnap her dad and attempt to recruit her into their service, she discovers he's been keeping a world of secrets from her--including the school for geniuses where she's sent for refuge, a place where classes like Practical Quantum Mechanics are the norm and where students use wormholes to commute to class. For Nikola, the hard part isn't school, it's making friends, especially when the student body isn't (entirely) human. But the most puzzling paradox of all is Nikola herself, who has certain abilities that no one understands-abilities that put her whole school in greater danger than she could have imagined.

Sarah Sammis

Children have a large capacity for suspension of disbelief. They're also often more willing than their adult counterparts to take things at face value. Good books take those two facts and run with them to create memorable and enjoyable stories.

For these types of stories to work, the main character has to do things. They have to do all the wacky things they claim to be able to do. They can't just have things thrust upon them and then react (or not).

Unfortunately Nikola is a reactionary character. Except for a brief description of her home — an abandoned building housing entire mobile homes that serve as rooms — the entire set up for Nikola's life and her family situation is informed. She tells us she's a genius. She tells us her father is a wealthy genius inventor. We don't, however, get to meet him or see him do anything that would demonstrate his intelligence or his knack at inventing things.

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Privileged	Rural	Blue Highway	003333

A Problematic Paradox

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