The Paradox Hotel is an outstanding thriller that blends science fiction, a locked room murder mystery, romance, noir, and so many genres, it'll make your head spin. This is a very high-concept novel done brilliantly. Fans of Blake Crouch will be thrilled to get their hands on this gem of a novel. The hotel is where wealthy people go to travel through time. The plot will keep readers hooked from start to finish. Highly recommended! Looking forward to reading what Rob Hart comes out with next. Be sure to check out The Paradox Hotel today.

DNF 40%
I tried but I found myself confused alot of the time and not wanting to go back. the premise is great and reminds me of the rich in Westworld but I don't feel smart enough for this

When first emailed about The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart, it was in the context of “if you liked The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson, this is for you!” I jumped at the opportunity and I can easily say, it did not disappoint! You’ve got time travel, Alice in Wonderland, murder, dinosaurs, what else could you want?

Characters

Hart creates in The Paradox Hotel characters that are very well thought out and well developed throughout the book. I felt that I knew all of the characters and easily understood (most of) their motivations and personalities. None of the characters seemed flat to me. I also loved the diversity and growth of so many of these characters.

Plus, I always enjoy a sassy person and android combo, which we get here with January and Ruby.

Plot
I thought the premise of The Paradox Hotel was very interesting. Hart did a great job of creating tension for the reader. We see everything through the eyes of January who sees the immediate dangers of the wider situation. There is a large number of prominent guests, a snowstorm, a bunch of angry customers whose time travel vacations have been canceled without explanation, OH and a murder… which only January can see. On top of this, January has her own problems, progressing through the stages of being “Unstuck” due to her past as a time cop. As a reader, you feel the urgency of what January is doing, while also seeing the need for her to address and slow her progression to stage three.

Being an Unstuck, slipping back and forth in time, you will eventually become stuck in your mind. Once reaching the third stage, the Unstuck is in a coma in reality, while inside their brain they are continuously slipping. Since January is Unstuck, the reader is thrown back and forth in January’s life from one paragraph to the next. While that may seem difficult as a reader, it helps with that sense of urgency and builds complexity.

I thought it was really powerful as a narrative device eventually creating a somewhat unreliable narrator. One of the main conflicts in The Paradox Hotel is the fact that there is a murder that has occurred – in the future, past, present? Who knows? We know that January has some sort of her own time conflict going on. It leaves you unsure of how to solve the problem at hand (namely, murder) if it has even happened.

Time Travel
One thing I could point to that was a letdown, was how the time travel actually functioned. In The Paradox Hotel we do not learn about how it all worked. We know that the hotel serves the customers who use the nearby time port, but that is about all we get to know. While that may have been swept to the side since January does not actually travel through time via the time port, I can excuse this oversight.

Overall
I really enjoyed The Paradox Hotel. Some readers may dislike it because of the nature of January’s Unstuck status. I just think that added another level of complexity to the issues at hand. You will certainly not want to try to skim parts of this book due to the slips in time! The premise is very complex in this, as is expected with time-y things, but is well worth the read.

A book about time travel and love. Evil ne’er do wells breaking the rules. Overly long in places - seems that’s true of just about every novel I read these days.

I don't know exactly what it was about this book, but I couldn't make it past the first couple of chapters.

I'm not a huge fan of Science Fiction but this synopsis drew me in. I'm always fascinated by the fact that time travel could happen in the future. I loved the fact that the hotel was the barrier to the now and another time period. Now add a dash of murder and you've got yourself an interesting read!

While I enjoyed January as a character, I wish she had more background story to her. I really enjoyed the side characters and also wish they built up a bit more.

Overall the story was enjoyable, and I would recommend it to others who enjoy a bit of Sci-fi and murder.

I am a member of the American Library Association Reading List Award Committee. This title was suggested for the 2023 list. It was not nominated for the award. The complete list of winners and shortlisted titles is at <a href="https://rusaupdate.org/2023/01/2023-reading-list-announced-years-best-in-genre-fiction-for-adult-readers/">

Can’t say too much because of spoilers. This was a good time travel read. If you enjoy that pick it up you won’t be disappointed.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy. This is my honest review.

I originally wanted to read this, because I enjoyed the author's last book, The Warehouse! I finally got around to picking this back up this month.

This book is about a hotel where rich people go to time travel, it reminded me of the Loki show with a splash of Westworld. The audiobook made it a little hard to grasp the complexity of the characters and world. I had to listen to the beginning a few times and then read the first few pages slowly, it all ended up being worth it. The long list of characters and the world are hard to grasp at first, but once I had an understanding of everyone and everything...it was a lot of fun to read!

While it wrapped up very quickly towards the end, I'm pretty content with how it ended. I do think this may be the case where a movie adaptation would be even better! Hopefully that happens sometime in the future. I'm also looking forward to Rob Hart's next book!

A smart, fresh blend of noir, time travel, love story, locked room mystery, and, to top it all off, an unexpectedly moving treatise on grief and memory and the ghosts we carry with us. I loved the narrative voice, quippy and wry and sharp, and the plot moved swiftly and tightly, keeping me wondering, nearly always a step behind protagonist January's detecting skills. An excellent spin on multiple genres and literary conventions - I loved it.

Some books, I read and don't really enjoy but can see the appeal they'd have to others. This is one that I struggled to read because I disliked nearly the whole thing, and I don't see any redeeming features that would make it a fantastic book to other people. I feel bad saying that so bluntly, and I wish I could sugarcoat it while still giving my honest review.
This took me a few tries to get past the first few pages. The main character, setting, and storyline from the beginning did not interest me. The blurb did; I wanted a murder mystery set with time travel aspects. But this story was all over the place with way too many things going on. It needed more focus and direction.

While I love some good snark in real life, I find that most sarcastic characters in books just aggravate me; I don't usually come across one who's written well. This book fell into the camp of trying hard to have an interesting and witty main character, but to me she felt false and forced and I could not stand her. Or her drone, Ruby.

I don't know what else to say about this book. I did not like it. That's about it.

The Paradox Hotel is a fascinating, high-concept sci-fi novel for fans of authors like Blake Crouch.

This is definitely a must read for fans of the time travel genre with a side of mystery.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

Twisty scifi that reminds me of Blake Crouch... but doesn't reach the clarity of purpose that Crouch approaches. The Warehouse was a good book and I took a gamble on this one being as tight, but the time travel aspects (one of my pet peeves) of the book were not done well... And I couldn't get past that.

Woah this one has such a cool concept. This hotel is full of guests checking in to travel back in time. There’s time travel, a dead body and one amazing hotel. This rewound needs to be a movie.
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Thank you #ballantinebooks and #NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

Fun adventure and enjoyable read! Great character development and a thoughtful, complex, plot line. Not your father’s time travel novel…..more of a treatise on why we do the seemingly crazy things that we do as human beings. Don’t miss this one!

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I initially read the description of this book (seemed a bit all over the place). And while my initial impression was accurate (the book is a bit all over the place),, I mean that in the BEST way possible. Such a fun, compelling read, that made me laugh out loud at times. I had never previously read a book by Mr. Hart, but will certainly be looking out for his future books.

Clever time travel novel, of which I am not a fan. But. This one kept me interested which was great. That said, didn't love it.

Wow, wow, wow. Just left me speechless, which doesn’t happen often. Pick this one up!!! Don’t want to say too much, as it will give too much away.

The low ranking is not a reflection of the work itself, but rather speaks to the fact that I selected other books over this title.

Stars: 4 out of 5.

I don't read a lot of time travel stories. Usually because the science of it makes my head hurt, or because the complete lack of scientific backing or inner logic makes my brain hurt. Plus, I usually can't get over the time paradox that a lot of these stories create. Like, if the character went into the past to save his sister/lover/parent, wouldn't that person be alive in the new present, thus negating their need to go into the past and change things? Brain explodes.

But I'm happy to announce that we don't have as many time traveling shenanigans here, so I could enjoy this book without giving myself a migraine. We have more of a case of people existing outside of time, or being Unstuck. And that's a wonderfully interesting concept that I haven't see in books before. I liked the narrative possibilities it opened. Being Unstuck is not a boon. In fact, most people who reach the third stage of being Unstuck fall into a coma, their mind lost in time, disconnected from their body and the "present". This adds an additional danger to the already dangerous situation our protagonist finds herself in.

Speaking of protagonists. January is a hard cookie to crack. She is far from being a nice person. She is abrasive and rude to everyone around her. She lashes out at everyone who tries to help her out or even try to be nice at her. She is like a wounded dog that bites the hand that tries to pet him. It's hard to empathize with such an abrasive character... and it's a real feat that the author actually makes you empathize with her in the end. January is a major b to everyone around her and so clearly miserable with her job, with the hotel, with her life in general, to the point that nobody understands why she stays there. She has enough years on the job to retire comfortably. In fact, retiring and getting away from the time port is the best thing she can do, since being so close to it slowly worsens her condition. So why does she stay? By slowly uncovering her reasons for staying, the author explains why she is so abrasive to everyone. And makes the reader care for her in the process.

It also helps that she genuinely cares about the hotel and the people who work there, even if she doesn't know how to show her affection to them. So she fights tooth and nail to keep them safe. To neutralize the threat she uncovers. And she grieves for those she is unable to save. January is flawed, even broken, but she isn't a bad person.

And the other characters are just as interesting and eclectic. I really enjoyed getting to know them. They felt real. I would have loved to discover more of their backstories. What brought them to Paradox Hotel? Why are they staying? It's not like they are treated well or that the pay is exceptional... yet all of them stay. It says a lot about the author's mastery of their world that each supporting character could have been the protagonist of their own story, and I would have been there for the ride.

My only complaint is the villains' motivation. I'm still not sure what the end game was here, for either of those people. They already went back in time and made one of them filthy rich. What else did they want to accomplish? What's the ultimate end goal? Since that's never really explained, it lessens the impact of the book, in my opinion. 

But that's a small gripe. I loved this story a lot more than I expected, and I'm not a fan of time travel stories. So for those who love them, this is a must read!

PS: I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.