Friday Reads – Summer Solstice

Maggie ♦ February 8, 2013 ♦ 1 Comment

This year, I said I’d stay away from the library and read some of the books I had sitting around the house. Well… about a week ago, I picked up Michael Hinkemeyer’s Summer Solstice (1976), which belongs to my mother. It’s a horror novel whose remote setting and strange rituals reminded me a little bit of The Wicker Man (the horrible version with Nicolas Cage), and it’s one of those creepy, small-town novels about pitchfork-wielding farmers with a huge secret.

I found myself trying to guess what the plot turns and the ending of the book were going to be quite often, because at times, the plot seemed very predictable. I was wrong every time, and that’s the mark of a good book. My only real issues with it were that, with a lot of horror novels, the main character seemed to be a bit too gullible and naive, and there isn’t a whole lot of character development.

All in all, it was a great book, even though some parts were almost unbearably disgusting. It gave me the creeps in the best possible way. I also think this book would lend itself well to cinema; I could clearly envision it as a movie that I would watch, and that’s definitely not something I say about every book.

Have you read it? If so, what did you think?