What if you were battling against perfection? What if you couldn’t trust the thoughts in your own mind? These are the challenges Oscar Banks faces in Pam Bachorz’s book Candor. In telling Oscar’s story, this book raises a lot of questions about life, love, and humanity. When you read this book and answer the questions it poses, you will learn a lot about yourself.

Model teenager Oscar Banks lives in the perfect town of Candor in south Florida. Aptly named, the citizens of Candor are smart, honest, hard working, and kind. The only problem with them is they have no free will. Oscar’s father built the town and created Messages for the residents. These messages control every thought in your mind, from what you want to eat to how you will spend your free time. The Messages are inescapable, spouted from tiny speakers around town and in homes. Once you start listening to them, your brain can no longer live without them. If you stop listening to them, you will die. Nobody in Candor knows of the existence of the Messages except Oscar. He records his own messages for himself in order to maintain his free will and remember key events from his past that the Messages would otherwise eradicate. Whenever a new teen moves to Candor, Oscar will offer to help them keep their free will…for a price. He has the perfect system-that is, until beautiful, mysterious Nia moves to town. Oscar and Nia’s journey will grip you and pose questions that we don’t normally ask ourselves.

This beautifully told novel will hold your interest until the last page. You will see parts of your personality in all of the characters and come to form strong opinions about them. Oscar’s story poses many questions, ones you might not be able to answer unless you carefully consider who you are. In answering the questions raised by Candor, you will learn more about yourself than you ever have.