Solstice by Lorence Alison stars Adrianna (Adri) Sanchez and her best friend Elena as they embark on an adventure like no other! A wild, indulgent, and insanely expensive music festival named Solstice - featuring some of the world’s most famous performers - is planned to be on the beautiful, carribean island, Myla. Videos advertising the event, promising beautiful scenery, endless entertainment, top tier catering, and luxury bedrooms, went viral, and anyone that could afford the ten thousand dollar fee were jumping on this opportunity of a lifetime. Unfortunately, Adri wasn’t one of those people. This doesn’t bother her much because she’s one of those girls that are super focused on school and makes amazing grades, much to her parents' delight. She’d even scored a great internship at a law firm that would let her wiggle her way into a prestigious college. It seemed like the world was for her, and Adri had no issue with not attending Solstice, until Elena surprises her with the news that they are because her dad had bought them tickets! Only one problem: there was no way Adri's parents would let her go, with her internship and all. So for the first time in her life, Adri breaks the rules and sneaks out to go to the Solstice festival. On the most lavish plane ride she’d been on in her life, Adri is convinced that this will be the most memorable moment of her life and a great bonding experience with Elena.
Upon landing on the island, she finds that none of her thoughts were true, nor were the advertisement videos for the festival. As the day goes on, all these rich people are suffering with no internet, no water, no food, and absolutely no shelter, aside from a few dingy tents that did not fit all the guests. It doesn’t take long for people to realize they’ve been horribly scammed. Adri is determined to get to the bottom of things, and after a talk with Zach, the organizer of the whole event, she empathizes with him. Zach tried his best to make the place the best he could, but nothing was arriving on time and it’d seemed like many companies scammed him, too. It all seems like a massive, horrendous misunderstanding with every person and organization involved, until the first body washes up on shore. And then the next, and another…
Now it’s up to Adri to investigate the cause of these deaths. Is it the sketchy organizer, Zach? Island locals? Or a monster that dwells deep in the ocean?
Personally, I think this book had great potential - the plot, at least - but it wasn’t a great book in terms of character development, depth, and there were some typos. After reading this book, I could see why the charity shop I’d bought it from sold it for 33 cents. The synopsis on the inside flap of the book jacket seemed promising, but the book was not even half as engaging as that, which at least I could skip if I so wished. This book was greatly based on the Fyre Festival incident, which if you are unfamiliar with, is basically a huge scandal involving an expensive music festival and improper preparations, which left thousands of rich people scammed and stranded on an island. The main things this book lacks is relatability, intrigue, and depth. The book does not develop Adri as a main character, instead using a basic stereotype of a responsible, smart girl, whose only interesting point is that she wants to be a reporter despite her parents' wish for her to be a doctor or lawyer, and even that isn’t explored or talked about much. The dialogue is pretty flat and doesn’t sound like how teens would really talk. I can’t find much of anything about Lorence Alison, but maybe they’re really old and out of touch with kids these days. I think this book could totally get in depth about Adri’s relationships with her family (there’s some brief thing about her sister being the failure of the family? That is never talked about again??), and her relationship with her best friend, Elena. The book also takes so long to actually get into any conflict that I’m nearly finished with it and it’s just gotten to the climax. Anyways, now that I’ve finished talking about how much this book sucks, let's talk about the redeeming parts. Solstice (both the book and the festival) got more interesting with the help of a few deaths and a monster that terrorizes the island once in a while. The promised horror aspect of the novel kicks in around page 200 and the book is only 278 pages long. The shapeshifting monster is real(?) To be frank, I haven’t read the end of this book because it doesn’t provide me the motivation to do so, therefore I can’t say much about that.
Overall, I have many issues with this book, mostly with it being extremely boring until page 200. I would wish this book on my worst enemy as required reading because it is the most awful book I’ve read in a long time.
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