"Proxy" by Alex London

Every once in a while, you find a really good phrase in this book, like "It reminded him of all the other beatings he'd ever taken, his memory filled with the echo of wounds."  Unfortunately, those are few and far between.  I tried to find the parts of this book that make it so popular.  Teens love it.  But I have to say, I felt like I was slogging through it, more focused on what was wrong than what was right.  Let's start with the writing.  It's very inconsistent.  There are phrases like the one above, and really lame, unrealistic dialog.  There is first person, third person and who knows what kind of narration.  It starts with the voices separated by chapters -- first, the voice of Knox, then, the voice of Syd.  As their lives cross, however, their voices do, too.  Next thing you know, the perspective changes every paragraph, with that of other characters (such as Egan and Marie) thrown in for good measure.  Then, there are the themes.  I get why teens like them.  There is a good deal of "put upon" teen angst, along with a lot of "us against the overlords" kind of thing, but, in contrast with other popular post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction, this just doesn't hold up.  For one thing, it feels dated.  One of the main themes is reminiscent of the Occupy Wall Street/We are the 99% movement.  "Corporations bad" and technology, feeding on every capitalistic action we take, is worse.  The point is hammered (and hammered, and battered) in, over and over again, until you just don't care.  And, I'm sorry, Occupy Wall Street is so 2011.  Then, there is the blatant racism, bigotry, etc.  Syd is constantly treated a certain way, and hassled (along the lines of the F word -- the other F word), because he is gay.  He is hassled for being brown-skinned.  His friend is hassled for being Jewish.  Yes, racism still exists today.  Yes, there is a backlash to the openess we are seeing in society these days, openly discussing those things that used to be taboo.  But this novel supposedly takes place in the way, way future.  Given where we are now, and the predictions of race mixing in the coming years, and the perceptions of the Millennials about race and gender, it feels like this book takes place in 1982, not 21-whatever.  If you want a good book about being gay in America, check out David Levithan's veritable masterpiece "Two Boys Kissing."  While reading this one, I couldn't help but think it was more about the author's youth than a future that was in any way possible.  Lastly, I didn't like the characters much.  The most appealing character is Syd, but he, like Thelma and Louise, trods a path of liberation not by choice, but because he is forced down one road after another.  It's more like fate than character development.  The same goes for Knox.  He is a character without one single redeeming value, until the very end, with a twist that I saw coming from the very beginning of the tale.  There is Egan, whose role ends up being kind of pointless, and Marie, whose passion is denigrated by others as a "cause girl."  The previews, at the end of the book, didn't do much to make me want to keep reading.  The "prequel" is basically the story I just read, with a lot more exposition, and the one chapter of the next story isn't enough to get a real taste (although, in Liam, there might be a character I like).  In any case, if you eat up every dystopian novel, go for it.  For me, it was just a moralistic, preachy mess.