The Paradox Hotel

“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.