Solstice (Dying Earth, #1)

by P. J. Hoover

[Angie]

Solstice is one of those books where a negative review piqued my interest in it. Unfortunately, I ended up liking the idea of this book better than the actual book. The story started well enough with us being introduced to this future where Global Climate Change has actually become Global Warming as temperatures are nearly always over 110F. Piper lives with her super overprotective mother, and she essentially has no life outside of their greenhouse. But then there's a new mysterious boy. Scratch that. Two new mysterious boys. And now Piper's life is getting a bit more interesting, but of course, she's not who she thought she was.

I did love how Greek mythology was mixed with our current environmental problems. Even without the gods being involved, this future looks like something we could be heading for, and that's kind of scary. Solstice is a Dystopian-ish retelling of Persephone and Hades, so clearly, Piper is Persephone and her super possessive mother is really Demeter. It's also only in the last eighteen years that temperatures have reached their record highs. While I liked how Piper/Persephone's life with her mom has stopped the seasons from changing, I just couldn't help but wonder why it was stuck in summer. Shouldn't it have been perpetual spring? Unless there was some detail that I missed? Either way, one would think Lucia/Demeter being happy would cause her to be kind to the earth rather than killing it.

Being a retelling of Persephone and Hades, Solstice is heavy on the romance and the instalove. There's a kind of love triangle, but not really, since one guy that Piper is initially interested in turns out to be a creep and she doesn't want him, but he's desperate to have her. We're not really given a reason for that, other than he likes to win. So...yeah. But Piper instaloves on the other guy, but there's an explanation for that which makes it kind of not instalove and I kind of bought it. Except for...well, that's kind of a spoiler, so...oh well.

By the end of Solstice it seemed like reuniting Persephone and Hades was the main point of the book, since once that happen it suddenly ends. I do mean suddenly. There's other things going on, but the book just ends. I thought maybe it was the first in a series, but there's a happy epilogue. Does it touch on those dangling plot threads? Nope. Even though I wasn't loving the story, I did want more, since I wanted to know what happened to Piper's mom and that other guy, since they did some bad things. I also wanted to know what happened with the Climate Change now that she's free to move between worlds again. But it literally just comes to an end.

I really wanted to like Solstice, but that sadly didn't happen. There's a lot of interesting ideas, but nothing came together quite as well as it could have. I don't mind romance focused stories, but it is annoying that getting the romance resolved voided all of the other happenings.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.