Zodiac

Zodiac

by Romina Russell
Genres: Young Adult, General, Fantasy & Magic, Science Fiction
Published on December 9th 2014
Pages: 336

Rhoma Grace is a 16-year-old student from House Cancer with an unusual way of reading the stars. While her classmates use measurements to make accurate astrological predictions, Rho can’t solve for ‘x’ to save her life—so instead, she looks up at the night sky and makes up stories.
When a violent blast strikes the moons of Cancer, sending its ocean planet off-kilter and killing thousands of citizens—including its beloved Guardian—Rho is more surprised than anyone when she is named the House’s new leader. But, a true Cancrian who loves her home fiercely and will protect her people no matter what, Rho accepts.
Then, when more Houses fall victim to freak weather catastrophes, Rho starts seeing a pattern in the stars. She suspects Ophiuchus—the exiled 13th Guardian of Zodiac legend—has returned to exact his revenge across the Galaxy. Now Rho—along with Hysan Dax, a young envoy from House Libra, and Mathias, her guide and a member of her Royal Guard—must travel through the Zodiac to warn the other Guardians.
But who will believe anything this young novice says? Whom can Rho trust in a universe defined by differences? And how can she convince twelve worlds to unite as one Zodiac?


I bought this book for another blogger for a swap.  I thought it looked interesting so I borrowed a copy for myself.

I liked the idea of a galaxy set up according to astrological signs.  I never knew much about astrology until I met the husband.  He’s into it.  He doesn’t use it for predictions but instead uses it to understand people’s personalities.  He was all upset that our signs shouldn’t get along when we started dating.  He didn’t understand how we could like each other so he did deeper research about our moon signs or some crap like that.  I don’t remember but apparently on that level we are highly compatible.  I thought that we just liked each other but what do I know?

In this galaxy people from Cancer feel strongly about protecting people and hate secrets.  Actually, that hating secrets thing made me a bit crazy.  The characters would get all angry and moody whenever they thought that someone had a secret.  I wanted to yell at them to get over themselves.  I’m not a Cancer.

I was very interested in the story and the world building about this society.  Based on that, this would have been a four star book, but the romance aspect dropped it a star.  There was an attempt at a love triangle with instalove and I hate both of those tropes.  I didn’t feel like any of the relationships were at all believable.  Of course, both men involved immediately declared their undying love for the female protagonist and had a hard time working together to save the galaxy because of their feelings for her.  It took me right out of the story.

Wipe away the romance aspect and this is a solid start to a series.

 

three-stars