Review: Downcast by Cait Reynolds

Goodreads summary:
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.

Review as posted on Goodreads:

I recieved a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

*CONTAINS SPOILERS*

My initial thought about this book was that it had a very Twilight vibe about it. Boy and girl meet and despite the strange behaviour of boy, they fall in love and drastic events follow. Despite Stephanie's feelings for Haley easing their way to fruition (untimately building up to sex [and I hope to God that's not the reason this book has been receiving 4 and 5 stars]), this book still only takes place over a period of two weeks, adding this book to the long cue of insta-love YA novels that are highly popular at the moment.

This book is a retelling of the Greek Persephone and Hades myth, and the characters are essentially just Hades, Persephone, Demeter, Zeus, etc, with new names. Therefore I do understand Haley's immediate attraction to Stephanie. He is Hades, who upon seeing Persephone, falls instantly in love with her. Stephanie, however, has no clue that she is Persephone, due to events that took place millenias ago. Despite some not so subtle hints forced upon her, it still takes her nerdy friend to come up with the possibility that she is actually a goddess (or an X-Men mutant, lol). 

Whilst this book has an okay overall storyline, I did find a few things lacking. It was a very quick, easy read, with short chapters (which is why I continued with the book until the end), though it seemed very obvious to me that this is the first book written by Reynolds. The writing style seemed somewhat inexperienced, a few characters were quite flat, and the climax to the story was just a lot of yelling at one another with no real action taking place (Breaking Dawn, anyone?). 

Despite all of this, I would still be willing to see where the rest of the series leads. 3/5 rating.

(Side note: understandably, ARCs have errors, but this one was ridiculous. I really hope these were cleaned up for the final publication.)