The Paradox Hotel is a time-traveling murder mystery with Jurassic Park vibes. That pretty much checks my boxes.

 

We follow January Cole, the head of security at a luxury time-travel hotel. Any job where you’re providing customer service to the ultra-wealthy can be a nightmare, but add in advanced tech, dinosaurs, and murder … and you’ve got a tornado. On top of all that, January is “Unstuck”: aka, she’s losing her place in time, snapping between past and future moments. 

 

January isn’t the most likable protagonist. She’s snarky and sometimes cruel, and makes some decisions that you as a reader probably won’t find relatable. But she’s grieving - and she’s got a decent sense of humor & playfulness about her - so at least in my case, I was rooting for her all the same. 

 

She’s got a robot sidekick called Ruby who is an absolute hoot & standout character here. January banters with Ruby in a hilariously antagonistic way. And you really feel for her as she’s dealing with these rich folks who have been totally brain warped: “They’ve been conditioned by their own success to believe they can’t do anything wrong.”

 

The book takes place in the future, and there’s a lot of queer rep that is part of characters’ identities but not a big deal otherwise in the world. January is a lesbian, her (dead) love interest is a trans woman, and a significant supporting character is nonbinary.

 

Speaking of January’s dead lover, she’s a bit of a flat character. She is Buddhist - and there are bits of wisdom & philosophy sprinkled throughout the pages that help guide January’s decisions - but that seems to be her one noticeable personality trait. She’s sweet and beautiful and oh-so-perfect, which makes it tough to get a full, human image of her.

 

The other fatal flaw with this book was the amount of overlapping elements. I thought the use of time travel was pretty clever (as both an exciting vacation and a terminal illness), but the amount of plot points built up towards the end became almost overwhelming. Some things felt obvious and some felt random, and there were so many pieces of info to hold in my head. And lots of characters.

 

But overall - this was FUN! Anything that includes velociraptors is a win for me. 

 

CW: blood, grief, death, terminal illness, chronic illness, murder, gun violence, drug use, injury, animal death, transphobia, homophobia, psychosis, dysphoria, classism, addiction, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts, war, antisemitism (there’s a trip back in time to Nazi Germany), fire injury, cultural appropriation