The Paradox Hotel A Novel

The paradox: I didn't enjoying reading it, yet I went ahead and finished it.

A genius mixture of thriller and science fiction with a plot that keeps you enthralled.

"Time travel is weird." This book felt like one of those novelty meals you get at touristy places, where you get some giant, oversized, delicious-but-way-too-much version of a burger or a pizza or something guilty pleasure-like. There's so much going on here, but in a fun way that I can't put my finger on. Like you've just walked into someplace with lots of really neat things going on, but you don't know which way to look first. January is head of security at the Paradox Hotel, a waystop for rich people on their way to experience time travel excursions. The hotel is allegedly hemorrhaging money though, and a conference involving the richest four people in the world has been convened to potentially privatize the hotel's existence. A man turns up dead, January starts to investigate, and gets caught up in something incredibly complex, while also battling the complications from being a stage-2 Unstuck--someone who has experienced way too much time travel and is unraveling medically as a result. Things get wonky, as any storyline involving time travel does, but oddly philosophical as well as January works through the meaning of death and loss. The author could probably have pared down all of these great ideas a bit and still had a great story at the end. It feels muddy, confusing in some places the way time travel books can be, and there's a large cast of characters that's periodically referred to by either their first or last names. Despite all that, I had a lot of fun reading this book, and I can't point to why. Some of the ideas feel like they could have been explored in their own separate books, and I felt like the entire layer of the conference wasn't necessary to tell the story (but did a great job of highlighting January's asshole protagonist nature), but I don't care. It was great fun to read. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rounded up for the sheer enjoyment of this wacky sci-fi novel and its delightfully snarky protagonist. January, head of security, is unstuck in time and keeps seeing her dead girlfriend, which is why she never wants to leave the Paradox Hotel. A send up of the ultra rich and powerful, an admonition of parents who reject (and damage) their gay children, and a reminder of what’s truly important in life… and death.

Sometimes I put off reading books for a long while and then become super irate once I finally read them. Why is this? Because it’s pretty much always those books that become some of my favorites. The Paradox Hotel follows January, the head of security for The Paradox Hotel, and she’s also unstuck in time. What does this mean exactly? She doesn't live linearly due to constant interactions with different timelines. She can relive the past and present and sometimes see the future. The hotel allows people of greater wealth to travel back to pretty much any period in time to experience (but not alter) life in a different way. Then let’s add in the fact that this is a government-owned thing, and I’ll let you draw your conclusions as to how that might work out for folks. This book is a lot, and some of it is kind of weird, but I honestly adored it. You can’t write a book about time travel/paradoxical things and not expect some weirdness. It’s honestly what initially drew me to this story. So it's four stars from me because I didn't want to put this book down (damn you, responsibilities!). Definitely going to hand sell this bad boy to anyone who wants to listen to me blather on about things :)