Downcast Blog Tour - Review

Title: Downcast
Author: Cait Reynolds 
Release Date: May 28, 2015
Publisher: BookTrope
Format: E-Arc 
Rating: 4/5 stars

Synopsis:

What would you do when faced with an impossible truth? Written with heart and passion, Downcast by Cait Reynolds is ripe with twists you never saw coming and love that defies the odds in this intense new Paranormal Romance retelling one of mythology’s greatest love stories.

It’s the start of Stephanie Starr’s senior year of high school, but sadly, this is no life of the prom queen. Stuck at the bottom of the high school social totem pole, Stephanie is forced by her domineering mother to wear lumpy linen dresses and eat organic tofu for lunch in a world of mini-skirts and pizza.

What Stephanie doesn’t anticipate is gorgeous and cocky Haley Smith who breaks social convention and pursues her with a determination that is both terrifying and flattering. Afraid that Haley is simply trying to set her up for massive humiliation, Stephanie does her best to push him away. But the more attention he pays to her, the more she runs, and the more everyone else begins to notice.

Instead of a loving family to support her as the mean girls make their play, Stephanie’s mother begins to unravel mentally, her possessiveness of Stephanie spiraling to new and frightening extremes. Stephanie is forced to grow up, find herself, and learn the truth about her past in order to save her mother, her friends, and her town. When the truth is revealed, nothing can prepare her for the outrageous reality of her existence…and nothing can save her from her fate.

Except Haley.

 Now onto the actual reviewing of Downcast. I love mythology and retellings, so an opportunity to read and review a Greek mythology retelling of course I was going to take it! Cait Reynolds didn't disappoint me at all. Stephanie just wants to live her life as normal as she can as she enters her senior year, which yeah that's all everyone ever wants. What she didn't expect was the whirlwind of secrets that was going to take over her life.

I wasn't sure who Stephanie was supposed to be when the story started, I mean I knew she had to be a Goddess or God or even a demigod but I was never quite sure until it was revealed.  The other characters and who they turned out to be were even more surprising because I would have switched them. Actually I did switch them in my head but once you read it you will understand. Anyway the whole plot was full of twists and turns that I never saw coming and it was wonderfully written.

To take Greek mythology and retell it in a way in which it leaves the reader guessing takes a lot to do. Besides the characters, Cait did a wonderful job at sticking to the myth as well and didn't rework a lot of the original ideas. The characters such as Stephanie and her friends had a lot of learning to do, to brace themselves for what was to come and it was nice to see how it was going to turn out.

The ending while it wrapped everything up nicely and pretty much ended the book (as far as I know), it left a hint of there could be more and did leave me wanting more to read. Maybe a companion which I would be all for because I want to know more about Helen and how her life is now that the events in Downcast are over. I would have said which retelling this was but I don't want to spoil who's who.