Move over Hunger Games. Sit down Divergent. Step aside Matched. Here comes PROXY locked and loaded and ready to take you on the ride of your life.
"Terror? Delight? Did it matter?" Knox is racing through the streets at 162 miles an hour planning his next move on Marie, the highly attractive and seemingly available girl in the seat next to him. But the one hand move to her thigh changes his life forever. Marie is dead. Knox is alive and Knox's proxy, Sydney Carton, is about to pay the price for Knox's mistake.
In this world the very rich of the Upper City buy the debt of the less fortunate of The Valve and are paid back with the convenience of using the unfortunates as proxies for their sins. When young Knox broke a priceless tablet from Mesopotamia, it was Syd his proxy who felt the sting of the EMD stick. When the car crashes and Knox is near death, it is Syd who is called for a blood transfusion and it is Syd who is tortured and sentenced to sixteen years in the Old Sterling Work Colony. Yet Knox and Syd will never meet. Or will they? Tensely wound and action-packed the worlds of Syd, Knox and Marie become surgically connected through their choices. Syd is on the run from the sentence for hard labor and through the cold-hearted actions of Knox's father, the two Patrons, Marie and Knox who have lived a life of lux, find themselves joining him in a course of events that will leave you gasping.
This is the battle of two colliding worlds, the extreme power and wealth of the patrons and their dominance of the unfortunates who inhabit the toxic, violent, desperate world of the proxies known as The Valve.
The intricately designed world of The Valve, the Upper City and the desert lands are the setting for the vivid and thought-provoking action.
What sets this book apart are the riveting story line, the evolving characters who begin in lowly places and rise to mind-bending heights, the parallels between our world and theirs, and above all a thread of heroism which can be claimed by anyone among us should we choose it.
Is there such a thing as destiny? What are you willing to give up to change the world?
This one will leave you stunned and wanting more.
Ages 12 and up 380 pages 978-0399257766
Recommended by: Barb
