Published: September 26, 2017
Publisher: Crown
Genre: Science Fiction
Series: Stand alone
Pages: 373 (Hardcover)
My Rating: 4.5/5.0
Synopsis:
Eli’s willing to admit it: he’s a little obsessed with the mysterious woman he met years ago. Okay, maybe a lot obsessed. But come on, how often do you meet someone who’s driving a hundred-year-old car, clad in Revolutionary-War era clothes, wielding an oddly modified flintlock rifle—someone who pauses just long enough to reveal strange things about you and your world before disappearing in a cloud of gunfire and a squeal of tires?
So when the traveler finally reappears in his life, Eli is determined that this time he’s not going to let her go without getting some answers. But his determination soon leads him into a strange, dangerous world and a chase not just across the country but through a hundred years of history—with nothing less than America’s past, present, and future at stake.
Forrest Gump always said “Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get” and that statement also applies to books. Sometimes you get a dud and sometimes it’s a hidden gem. Paradox Bound is of the latter sort – I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into but I loved every second of this bookish roadtrip. From the very first chapter I was pretty much hooked – a girl named Harry who travels through history in her Model A, runs out of fuel at an inopportune moment and thus meets little Eli Teague, changing his life.
Harry (Harriet) Pritchard and Eli Teague are kind of the epitome of likable characters. They’re both good people with honorable goals and they jive really well together. The secondary characters vary – the travelers introduced are much the same, but the Faceless Men…. They’re pretty creepy. Let me do a bit of backtracking now because the Faceless Men are important. First of all, Harry and Eli (and the other travelers) are trying to find the physical manifestation of the American Dream, which has been missing for years. Since its creation, the Dream has been guarded by the Faceless Men who, despite the disturbing lack of facial orifices, can function beyond the capacity of normal humans because they have Certainty. Certainty is best described in the book – it’s like being your house in the dark; you can still navigate without eyesight because you just know where everything is. The Faceless Men no longer search for the missing Dream, but now hunt down travelers searching for it because they are out of place in history. I picture them as a cross between Slenderman and the Observers from Fringe. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.
It’s difficult for me to explain exactly why I liked this book so much and it seems to have just struck the right chord with me. A combination of the characters (good and bad), concept, and plot mixed together turned out like the perfect chocolate chip cookie. The whole roadtrip thing is like quintessential Americana. Cruising across the US with the windows rolled down with your pals… just my kind of thing. Paradox Bound is a quirky time-traveling adventure that I absolutely loved!
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