Through this list of books I've somehow managed to find books that I either love to death or books that I hate with a fiery passion (I'm looking at you Almost Perfect). Proxy falls into the first category.
This book was designed to be just like any other YA novel with a character who was nothing special, an orphan, basically take a dystopian trope and Proxy fits it. But that's what makes this book so awesome. Proxy is basically a regular YA novel that just happens to have a gay protagonist. He's basically the equivalent of Tris or Katniss but gay and black, which is even better. There's even a ton of Jewish aspects to the story, including the part that Syd, the Proxy, is carrying something called Yovel, a virus meant to bring on the Jubilee--the forgiving of all debts.
I loved everything about this book. The first three chapters were hard to understand, but they set up the tone of the world and from there everything just fell into place. It was fast paced, the characters of Syd and Knox were beautiful. Syd was in a crappy place in life but instead of moping around he was sassy and sarcastic but willing to help those in need. When he was hurt because his Patron, Knox, did something stupid he refused to let them see him cry. He had a great inner strength. Knox is the typical bad boy who made stupid decisions and even got a girl "killed". What I loved about him was that he may have seemed like a straight jock, he later revealed himself to be of the "anything goes" mindset meaning that he was more than willing to flirt and kiss Syd as he was willing to flirt and kiss Marie. It made him interesting and while he was fairly superficial at the beginning, he really did grow over a short 76 hour or so period into someone that I grew to love.
The side characters were a little bland though. Marie was nice but didn't have much of a personality other than being a Causegirl who wanted to bring on the Jubilee. Egan, Syd's friend, had some good points, but he really wasn't all that interesting. He existed just to move Syd and Knox from one place to another and then get killed. The villains were very reminiscent of the Erudite leader from the Divergent Trilogy and honestly the story seemed to move very fast at the end, but it all came together very nicely and left space for the second book which is coming out this year and it left me desperate to find out what the hell happened to Knox.
All in all I loved this book. I loved the futuristic aspect, I loved the fact that this book has the potential to appeal to both male and female readers, I loved the fact that Syd was gay and that his sexuality wasn't part of the story. He just happened to be a gay kid who was bound for greatness. I loved the fact that this story had Jewish elements because that seems to be something you don't see in YA novels. If there's anything remotely religious in the teen novel it tends to be something like Catholicism but even then it's really not there.
This book is filled with so many things to reach a diverse group of readers who may have otherwise felt alienated from the YA genre. I hope to see more books coming out like this one. Also, it's published by Philomel books, which is an imprint of Penguin Books. In the end I give this book a full five stars and I've already preordered the next book, Guardian, out May 29th.
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