Goodreads | Sunshine

Mary-Beth rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

01/26/08

bookshelves: fantasy, fiction, romance, sciencefiction

I like Constantine and the other vampires for their inhumanity, which is not an easy thing to write. Although Constantine is slightly more human than the other mad vamps, he's still emotionless, alien and interesting for those traits.

I like the post-apocalyptic world the author created. I like the demons and the 'bad spots' and the charms and other magics, but what I like best is that they exist in a world that largely goes on as normal. The world does that no matter how bizarre things becom...more I like Constantine and the other vampires for their inhumanity, which is not an easy thing to write. Although Constantine is slightly more human than the other mad vamps, he's still emotionless, alien and interesting for those traits.

I like the post-apocalyptic world the author created. I like the demons and the 'bad spots' and the charms and other magics, but what I like best is that they exist in a world that largely goes on as normal. The world does that no matter how bizarre things become and I think McKinley was very insightful to write it that way.

I really dislike the protagonist. This makes reading a story told in the first person very difficult. This is a shame because the character is moderately interesting - an obsessive compulsive baker who loves her work. I thought the idea of being a solar powered transmuter of objects was kind of cool. But then she becomes the most awesomest of all transfigurers ever who can make vampires immune to the sun, then she kills a vamp with a butter knife, which she discovers she can do because she can detect vamps from miles away, then she develops the ability to see in the dark and sense the life forces around her and gets a spirit-guide doe and tree while she's at it. You see where I am going with this. By the end of the novel I was so tired of her special abilities I wanted to throw the book every time they were mentioned. It wasn't even just her. Constantine turns out to be really over the hill, which in a vamp means he usually can't even bear moonlight, but of course Constantine can and so much more, etc etc ad nausium.

Sunshine as a character has all the romance of a limp noodle. Then there's this scene where she suddenly appears naked on top of Constantine and I giggle and cringe for a few pages while she groans about how she has to get some hot vampire lovins NOW DAMMIT, but is pissed off because the cold undead gray coloured mushroom smelling dude won't put out. WHAT? WHAT? She wants a man she describes this way constantly? This isn't even mentioning she doesn't feel the slightest twinge of guilt about her boyfriend. Yeah . . .

Other things that constantly pinged me out of this novel: This novel has completely inexplicable and stupid slang like "carthaginian hell" instead of plain unadorned regular hell (I don't get it, do the Carthaginians have a worse one?) and "sheer" and "Spartan" instead of "cool," and "tough" which every time I read them, I had to read the sentence two or three times to get it because given that these are regular words, which mean quite different things than what the author wants them to, I momentarily think the author has been doing drugs and is just writing any old word any old where.

Another thing, the exposition nearly makes my head explode sometimes. This author writes her book the way I would probably write one, by cramming all of her concepts about the world into Sunshine's internal monologue in a completely lame and boring way. I certainly hope Sunshine doesn't often ruminate on the history of her society and the scientific facts about supernatural creatures when they're about to eat her for afternoon tea, but the way the book reads you'd think she does.

I know it's a cliche, but the old "show, don't tell" mantra is fully illustrated here. The protagonist tells the reader everything, because the author gives us no credit to figure anything out for ourselves. There's very little straight dialogue or description. It's mostly a bunch of narration which the author probably finds hilarious, but I can't stand Sunshine's voice so it does nothing for me. This is probably because she is the queen of tangents and is always asking stupid questions - in her freaking head. Plus she always thinks the same things over and over and over and over again, which while it is realistic makes for crappy reading. It's like this book is trying to be an awesome stream-of-consciousness novel and failing utterly.

The best parts of the novels are the parts that aren't explained to death, like the "bad spots," which, even though the author does thwack the reader with lots of exposition mallets about, somehow still retain some mystery as to what precisely they are.

Then there's the horrid long sentences into which are interjected completely tangential ideas separated off by dashes and which make me cross my eyes at the page, frown, and stop reading, then restart reading, this time ignoring the awful hunk in the middle so I can actually understand what in the blue blazes she's on about.

My reading of this novel has been full of moments where I'll be reading along quite contentedly and then go cross-eyed at some ridiculous thing and be knocked right out of the story. It got worse towards the end rather than better....less

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Jarrah rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

12/18/07

bookshelves: author-robinmckinley, broadgenre-adultspeculative, cliche-demons, cliche-spells, cliche-vampires, cliche-weres, country-america, genre-urbanfantasy, setting-alternatereality, setting-postapocalypse

Read in November, 2007

Adult vampire urban fantasy. Sunshine lives in an alternate post-apocalyptic world in which Others - vampires, weres, demons and angels - are accepted and everywhere. We don't see any angels, mind you. This one's all about the horror. Sunshine herself lives an ordinary life working in her step dad's cafe, until she does something stupid and gets herself captured by the 'darkest' of the Others: vampires. Seriously messed up psychopathic supervillains. Sunshine finds out a few things about herself...more Adult vampire urban fantasy. Sunshine lives in an alternate post-apocalyptic world in which Others - vampires, weres, demons and angels - are accepted and everywhere. We don't see any angels, mind you. This one's all about the horror. Sunshine herself lives an ordinary life working in her step dad's cafe, until she does something stupid and gets herself captured by the 'darkest' of the Others: vampires. Seriously messed up psychopathic supervillains. Sunshine finds out a few things about herself, and forges an alliance with somebody she shouldn't even be able to look at, let alone develop feelings for.

I wanted to love this. It's a classic of the genre. It's an intricately thought-out world, and a lot of the ideas, especially about magic, are rather cool. But it is, for me, flawed in ways I can't get over. Principally, I had trouble with the POV. It's first person, and the style is fairly colloquial - we don't ever forget that it's Sunshine herself telling the story - but it's the most distant first person narrative I've ever read. Even after three hundred pages of first person story, I don't feel that I have a handle on Sunshine as a character. Her voice distances us from the action by diverging into random info-dumps about the world (which, yes, very complex and layered) and about her own backstory. At one point she grabs a steak knife and lunges out the door after a vampire, and then gives us a page and a half of information about the proper way to kill a vampire and basically how a steak knife won't cut it, before we finally get to the end of her lunge. And, OK, I accept that that info was relevant to the action, but it should have gone, oh, any time before the lunge.

She's also a somewhat unreliable narrator, which further distances us from the story. She doesn't lie, but she keeps secrets from the reader. She'll obsess about something for weeks, and even though we're with her for those weeks, we won't find out until weeks later, when she suddenly brings it up. I think this is a deliberate stylistic decision, and is supposed to reflect Sunshine's own mindset and the way she's trying to hide her own thoughts from herself and pretend amnesia that she doesn't feel. Still, it works against my involvement in the story. Case in point, I was actually musing about these things while reading the life-or-death climax, which shouldn't have been possible. But the truth is, I didn't care very much whether Sunshine and Con came out of the climax OK.

Two more things, quickly:

One is the villain, Bo. He's supposed to be a looming menace over the entire book, but we not only don't meet him until the last couple of scenes - The Lord of the Rings has a successful villain the heroes never meet, so that's not a deal-breaker - but we don't get any clear sense of his personality or presence before then either. He doesn't work as an antagonist. The Goddess of Pain is a better one, but she's not central to the plot, and is also introduced fairly late.

The other is the romance. Or, rather, the sex. There's this completely random, very graphic, not-quite sex scene in the middle of the book, that just made me tilt my head to the side and stare. There's growing feeling between the two central characters, which could be read as sexual tension, but then this sex scene, which is over in about a paragraph and a half, comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere and is never followed up on and I just kind of wonder if McKinley's editor asked her to make it sexier and this was what she came up with? It didn't add anything for me. It's too short to be hot, and too random to be powerful.

All that said, this book made me think, a lot, and that's the sign of an interesting book. And she does a mean aftermath, and a nice final scene, which I can appreciate....less

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Elizabeth rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

05/17/08

bookshelves: 2003, fantasy, favorite-writers

There are certain things I will do for Robin McKinley that I would not consider for any other author. I pretend the first fifty pages of The Blue Sword are only five pages; I choose to be amused by her increasingly poor grammar (a sacrifice made in order to convey amusing asides in ellipses); I went with her when she retold the Beauty and the Beast story, both the first and second time she did it; and I read Spindle's End twice, because I thought that I simply hadn't paid enough at...more There are certain things I will do for Robin McKinley that I would not consider for any other author. I pretend the first fifty pages of The Blue Sword are only five pages; I choose to be amused by her increasingly poor grammar (a sacrifice made in order to convey amusing asides in ellipses); I went with her when she retold the Beauty and the Beast story, both the first and second time she did it; and I read Spindle's End twice, because I thought that I simply hadn't paid enough attention the first to absorb her narrative style and if I gave her better attention a second time, I would enjoy it. I did. I am willing to do a lot for McKinley because she rewards me so richly.

When I found out that Sunshine was about vampires and housed on the Horror selves, I paused. I read the first several pages still in the store, undecided, when I usually tuck the book under my arm without looking past her name. The first pages are about baking cinnamon rolls and fighting with her mother over getting her own apartment and the way her step father creates safe space for her and other people. It felt like Robin, even if it was in this strange other section of the store. So it made the trip home and I was rewarded all over again. Sunshine is a just-threatening-enough story told with humor that I didn't think possible and a wonderful juxtaposition of normal and fantasy that is the foundation for the plot, narration, and theme of the book. I'm not a fan of horror stories. I don't like books that graphic in their violence or pretend it doesn't exist. Rae, the main character, is legitimately and realistically scared out of her mind when she meets vampires. Her family is realistically terrified and concerned when she first disappears and then starts acting strangely. It's great to have a fantasy story with family and friends and real feelings and the lone heros are made fun of and those who aren't afraid are clearly crazy.

And it's a great read. I've read it several times now and I still smile at the funnies and respect the tangents and enjoy the narration. The only thing I can't forgive her for is writing Dragonhaven instead of a sequel to Sunshine. There are a lot of loose ends to this story. With any other author, one would assume that this was the start of a series, but McKinley has demonstrated before that she won't push an idea that won't come - there was supposed to be another book in the Damar series that never materialized - and she doesn't mind creating objects and background and complex characters that really don't get their fair share of time in the story at hand. As I said, I'm willing to put up with a lot for a story from Robin McKinley. That I probably won't get another Sunshine is just another thing I will have to put up with; the book manages multiple readings, so I will be content with that....less

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Silvercharmer rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

08/08/07

bookshelves: scifi-fantasy, vampires

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: Vampire fans and those who aren't sure about the whole vampire thing

Despite my affinity for the fantastically supernatural, this is actually my first vampire book. I've just never been that interested in them. My indifference is such that I'm only just now plowing through the many seasons of Buffy. But when both walkawayslowly and Neil Gaiman highly recommended it, I figured, sure? Why not? And I was justly rewarded.

The strength of this book really comes from the narrator. It’s first person, an approach that can yield good things or unspeakably horrible t...more Despite my affinity for the fantastically supernatural, this is actually my first vampire book. I've just never been that interested in them. My indifference is such that I'm only just now plowing through the many seasons of Buffy. But when both walkawayslowly and Neil Gaiman highly recommended it, I figured, sure? Why not? And I was justly rewarded.

The strength of this book really comes from the narrator. It’s first person, an approach that can yield good things or unspeakably horrible things, but in this case it’s used well. She’s a strong character, with an unlikely occupation (for a vampire story) in that she bakes cinnamon rolls for a living (which will likely result in an insatiable sweet tooth for the entirety of the read, by the way, as she’s very descriptive of all the baking wonders she’s capable of), and her voice is interesting and engaging, thanks to the diary-style prose and a good sense of humor. Her keenest insights, however, are about the vampires themselves, which is what makes the book really shine (Sunshine…get it? Har.)

Keeping in mind that I haven’t read vampire books, this author nails what it would be like to be in the presence of one of these creatures more effectively than any movie or cliché I’ve ever seen/heard. She describes them through non-descriptions, which oddly enough works amazingly well. I felt for the first time that there were real, definitive, alien differences between humans and vampires other than the no soul, no reflection stuff you see everywhere. This author went further, and I got more out if the story because of that.

A problem I had came at the very beginning. At the start of the book, the author plants you firmly in a world that mirrors normal, conventional reality, which set me up for this kind of story: “I’ve just been bitten by a vampire? Holy crap! VAMPIRES ARE REAL!” But then, a few pages later, you suddenly realize you’re in this story: “Dude. Larry got sucked dry by a vampire last night. Bummer for Larry.” In this book, demons, magic, charms, vampires, werewolves, are part of everyday life, and the transition into that knowledge is very jarring, to the point I was flipping back pages to see if I’d missed something.

I also found myself confused about certain concepts, such as the “tree-self,” although I admit I was not a very careful reader this time around, so it’s entirely possible the confusion is my fault and not the author’s. But I feel I should note it.

Anyway, for a first vampire book, I enjoyed it. You probably will, too.
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Miss_otis rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

10/29/07

bookshelves: would-buy

Truth be told, I’m sick to death of vampire stories. There’s so rarely anything original or new in the genre, and I’m really just not a fan of the Sexy, Mysterious, Dangerous Creature of the Night thing anymore.

However, I do love Robin McKinley, she’s the only reason I picked this book up, and I’m glad I did. Turns out this book isn’t “about vampires” in the way you might think; Sunshine’s world is either ours in an unspecified future, or an alternate versions of ours in w...more Truth be told, I’m sick to death of vampire stories. There’s so rarely anything original or new in the genre, and I’m really just not a fan of the Sexy, Mysterious, Dangerous Creature of the Night thing anymore.

However, I do love Robin McKinley, she’s the only reason I picked this book up, and I’m glad I did. Turns out this book isn’t “about vampires” in the way you might think; Sunshine’s world is either ours in an unspecified future, or an alternate versions of ours in which magic is very real, supernatural creatures are every damn place, and vampires are just one of the dangers that lurk in the night.

I liked Sunshine because she’s really pretty flawed: she’s got no real ambition other than to continue baking at her stepfather’s coffee house, she doesn’t want to do anything heroic, she’s not precisely warm, friendly, or social, and she freely admits that she’s not a brave person,and that at times, she’s a huge bitch for no real reason. And she’s really not interested in much of anything outside the coffeehouse or books.

I quite like the vampire, Constantine, as well. McKinley seems to have made absolutely no effort to make him in any way attractive, and in fact, makes him nerve-wrackingly inhuman. Actually, she does that with any vampire we see in the story, points out how very human they’re not, which pleased me. Not only that, Constantine almost seems to treat the human world as an aside – not necessarily that he and all vampires are superior to humans, just that the world of humanity is neither here nor there, which I found interesting.

I s’pose I should’ve expected this type of approach; McKinley does love her some twists on the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, and this does kind of boil down to that. Except there’s no romance (although there is some accidental nakedness) which is certainly refreshing, but frankly, I’d be willing to read vampire romance she wrote, because she so rarely annoys me with her unlikely romances.
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Bonnie rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

08/25/08

bookshelves: dark-fantasy, vampires

Read in August, 2008

It's not often I find it hard to rate a book but it happens and this turned out to be one of those books.
I gave it what I did, although I wanted to give it more but it can't be more. The few reasons I want to give it more then I did was 1. I like the vampire. I thought as a vampire with his lack of humanity it was apt, especially after reading a paranormal romance (urgh I hate that term) I wanted to read about a vampire that actually turned out to be vampirish, not romanticised and made human....more It's not often I find it hard to rate a book but it happens and this turned out to be one of those books.
I gave it what I did, although I wanted to give it more but it can't be more. The few reasons I want to give it more then I did was 1. I like the vampire. I thought as a vampire with his lack of humanity it was apt, especially after reading a paranormal romance (urgh I hate that term) I wanted to read about a vampire that actually turned out to be vampirish, not romanticised and made human.
2. I love how Sunshine acted towards events. So many books where the character goes through certain experiences they seem to not always suffer shock like a real person would and, somehow, accept and embrace the transition too easily. When it came to Sunshine, I found the way the character was written with her reactions to be far more believable then other stories.
3. I had a hard time putting it down. I think that says a lot, especially when I've been having trouble getting into any book lately but with this one I had a hard time putting it down.
There's also the style which at times bothered me because I'm so used to waiting for a chapter to end to be able to go and do something but McKinley didn't do clearly defined chapters (there were breaks but that's not good enough for me), but on the other hand I feel it added to, not necessarily to the fluidity of it, but the continuity.
As for the fluidity, and the reasons why I couldn't bring myself to give it more then what I did, I didn't feel it flowed much at all for all it's continuity. To me it read disjointedly. I felt there wasn't enough connecting detail between scenarios, as if the author thought it was fine to gloss over some areas or skip finer detail.
That and perhaps more detail about the world Sunshine lived in rather then waffling on about her and her heritage might have been nice. At least I would have liked more explanations for certain words and phrases because sometimes those certain words didn't always seem to fit in with the meaning I arrived at for them.
Maybe that's just me.
Otherwise it was a pretty good read to pass the time and I would recommend it for vampire nuts like myself seeing as, for me anyway, it turned out to have a proper portrayal of a vampire....less

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E. rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

08/23/08

bookshelves: 2008-08, urban-fantasy

Read in August, 2008

recommended to E. by: Allie

Raven Blaise is a not-so-normal baker in a world that is changed by series of wars and where humans coexist with Others (werewolves, zombies, demons, vampires, magic handlers, etc.). Raven loves the light and is thus nicknamed Sunshine. Sunshine is unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when she is captured to be fed to an imprisoned vampire, Constantine.

Sunshine is imprisoned with Constantine by his enemy, Bo. The unlikely pair develops an “honor among thieves�...more Raven Blaise is a not-so-normal baker in a world that is changed by series of wars and where humans coexist with Others (werewolves, zombies, demons, vampires, magic handlers, etc.). Raven loves the light and is thus nicknamed Sunshine. Sunshine is unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when she is captured to be fed to an imprisoned vampire, Constantine.

Sunshine is imprisoned with Constantine by his enemy, Bo. The unlikely pair develops an “honor among thieves” relationship. Con spares her life and through her untrained magic handling they escape together. They need each other and their mutual survival depends on it.

Normalcy after their escape is impossible. Bo and his subordinates track Con and Sunshine and they are forced to kill or be killed.

I have to compliment McKinley on her character development and world building in Sunshine, but I felt like it was a little wordy. Some of the environmental and secondary character details could have been removed. The first person POV is very tedious and I feel Constantine is neglected and under developed. I would have liked to known more about him.

In McKinley’s new war torn world, she introduces a Special Others Force (SOF) that absolutely servers very little purpose but takes up pages and pages of text. I wonder where she was going with it? The SOF storyline just seems to flare up and end without ever accomplishing anything. Was it gratuitous detail? I think so.

I do appreciate that McKinley treats vampires in the way a “ration human being” should. Sunshine is rightly afraid of Constantine. It’s a different take on the current fiction trend which tends to send humans running into the arms of their vampire killers. Sunshine develops a bond with Con, but he isn’t human and though there is love and friendship. Coexisting is strange and abnormal - McKinley appropriately conveys that relationship.

I did enjoy reading this book, but I couldn’t plow through it. I was disappointed with the unnecessary minutiae, but overall I’m pleased to have read Sunshine. ...less

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Monk rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

09/03/08

bookshelves: darkfantasy

Read in October, 2007

recommends it for: Modern Fantasy Lovers

Ok, Sunshine wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't a great book.

Meet Rae 'Sunshine' Seddon; twentysomething, a baker at a local coffee house, possessor of the feed-people gene, whiner. Also, she's the daughter of Onyx Blaise, one of the most powerful sorcerers the world ever knew before the Voodoo Wars. Not that she ever really thinks about it all that much - she wants to be her mother's daughter, no matter what her grandmother tried to teach her about magic.

Rae lives in a world permeated wit...more Ok, Sunshine wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't a great book.

Meet Rae 'Sunshine' Seddon; twentysomething, a baker at a local coffee house, possessor of the feed-people gene, whiner. Also, she's the daughter of Onyx Blaise, one of the most powerful sorcerers the world ever knew before the Voodoo Wars. Not that she ever really thinks about it all that much - she wants to be her mother's daughter, no matter what her grandmother tried to teach her about magic.

Rae lives in a world permeated with magic. People carry charms (effective ones), professional warders build guilds, and there's a national American agency, Special Others Forces, which handles the policing of the supernatural world. There are weres (even were-chickens), demons, partbloods and all sorts of other creatures out of myth, but the big nasty in Rae's world are vampires.

In her story she is captured by vampires one evening while trying to clear her head at the lake. No one ever gets away from vampires and when she is taken she is quite surprised to find a fellow captive at the place she is taken to is a vampire himself. She learns that not all vampires must be the kind that humanity sees and quickly entwines herself with the vampire Constantine in order to escape.

The story is a very, very slow build. McKinney builds the world exceptionally well, albeit through the eyes of a whiny baker-cum-barista. However, the climax takes forever to arrive, and when it does, it is over in a few short pages. Not a lot gets explained, and when it does, it happens with horrible examples of grammar gone bad. My largest sticking point is that there are moments where the editing just needed work. I found at least one instance of White Wolf grammar (I'm pretty sure the author meant 'careened' instead of 'careered') which I really would rather avoid in books put out by actual publishers.

It's also a very dense book, a 600 page novel hiding out in a 405 page book. Be ready for slow pacing and a long read.

All said, it's okay, I had hoped for more, what with a Neil Gaiman recommendation on the cover....less

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Sherri rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

05/16/08

bookshelves: fantasy

Read in January, 2007

I reviewed this at length long, long ago, but that's gone, so here's a reconstruction.

I love McKinley's writing. I have a single beef with her which seems to be consistent among the stories I've read -- shortchanged, high speed, 'the author is tired now' endings. Perhaps she hates writing endings. Perhaps her editor enforces a word or page limit. Possibly she fears the YA audience for whom she writes won't hang on beyond the climax of the story. I don't know why her endings disappoint m...more

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Julie rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

04/04/08

Read in March, 2008

This novel seemed like a great combination: vampires, baking, and Robin McKinley. However, the result was rather spotty and, at times, rather tedious – not a feature one really wants, especially during climactic vampire battle scenes. (Though, to be fair, I always prefer the lead-up to the battles, but a badly-narrated fight is anticlimactic.)

The action begins as our heroine is kidnapped by vampires and chained up next to a captive vampire. Strangely enough, he doesn’t eat her, and ...more

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Rosie rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

01/07/08

Read in January, 2006

recommended to Rosie by: found it in a library
recommends it for: Buffy Fans, McKinley fans, fans of vampire lore

I'm a big fan of Robin McKinley, and this was maybe the fifth book I read of hers. I found it much more adult than some of my other favorites (The Hero and the Crown, Spindle's End) but still laced with the same touches of magic, beautiful descriptions, and fully-believable if not-of-this world characters.

The main character is Rae Seddon, nicknamed Sunshine, who comes from a mysterious lineage of magically gifted people. She lives in a post-war world where vampires and demons are real thr...more

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Moontail rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

07/09/07

bookshelves: readandloved

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: Young Adult and Adult

From BookList:
Rae Seddon, nicknamed Sunshine, lives a quiet life working at her stepfather's bakery. One night, she goes out to the lake for some peace and quiet. Big mistake. She is set upon by vampires, who take her to an old mansion. They chain her to the wall and leave her with another vampire, who is also chained. But the vampire, Constantine, doesn't try to eat her. Instead, he implores her to tell him stories to keep them both sane. Realizing she will have to save herself, Sunshi...more

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Alana rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

07/31/07

bookshelves: fantasy, to-read, vampire

"The insides of our own minds are the scariest things there are."

Ten years after the end of the Voodoo Wars between the vampires and the humans Raven Blaise, called Sunshine, heads out to the lake to escape from the stress of her job and her family. She is captured by a group of vampires and presented as a test and a meal to another captive. Barely managing to escape by calling on the powers inherited from her powerful sorceror father, Sunshine tries to return to her normal way of ...more

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Sam rated it:

(review of isbn 0425191788)

09/04/08

When I picked this up, I was expecting a vampire novel. I was not expecting a sci-fi novel. In fact, I think the novel is somehow equal parts Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Philip K. Dick, and Kevin Brockmeier, though don't ask me how she managed it. I think genre fiction is risky enough, because it's too easy to get trapped by the formulas and cliches of the genres, but mixing genres is downright dangerous. It's a bit like alchemy; even when you don't blow things all to hell, you're more often than ...more

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Jon rated it:

(review of isbn 0425191788)

01/05/08

Read in January, 2008

I haven't read any Robin McKinley for years and Sunshine made me wonder why. It was a good vampire story. McKinley's world was a lot of fun, sometimes disturbing and sometimes just odd, but always a nice place to be.

I've wondered about the relationship between Sunshine and Constantine; trying to see what it is that I like about it. Perhaps it's just that I'm a sucker for such relationships, or maybe it was that I didn...more

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Jennifer rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

06/18/08

Read in June, 2008

I really enjoyed this. I never knew Robin McKinley had written a vampire book... I found it familiar as her work, but also had some new elements.

I liked:
- The main character, Sunshine, who was a typical McKinley heroine - unsure of her heritage, coming into some kind of singular magical power.
- The lingo. That was "hot flash"... stuff is "Odin", "Thor".. "Kali g*ddam!"... how expressive and unique. Love it!
- The magic. It took me awhile to figur...more

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Amber rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

05/07/08

Read in January, 2004

Sunshine leads an ordinary life, baking pastries in the wee early morning hours of her stepfather's coffee shop. That is, until she is hypnotized by vampires, and chained to the wall of a dark, long deserted mansion with another vampire, Con. Yes, it does seem like she is a goner, but this one doesn't actually want to suck her dry. He is rebelling against their captors, so Sunshine gets to live. And when she finds a way to escape, she returns his compassion and releases Con. This act is unpreced...more

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Collie rated it:

(review of isbn 0425191788)

09/01/08

Read in September, 2008

recommends it for: fans of Twilight and Buffy

Rae Seddon, nicknamed Sunshine, has a pretty simple life. She works at her stepfather’s coffeehouse in Old Town, baking cinnamon rolls that are famous all over New Arcadia. All in all, it’s a pretty normal, stable life, surrounded by lots of family and friends. But one night, on a whim, she drives out to the like, looking for a place to be alone for a while. And then, as the book jacket says...“Unfortunately, she wasn’t alone. She never heard them coming. Of course you don’t, whe...more

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Baco rated it:

(review of isbn 0515138819)

07/27/08

bookshelves: fiction, magic, vampires

Read in July, 2008

I feel like I would have appreciated this a lot more if I'd read Twilight first! But I pretty much flat-out refuse to go anywhere near Twilight, so. Er.

I really liked the world here, but I thought the near-constant tangents to explain how the world worked were unnecessary and frustating. I enjoyed the POV, but it really pulled me out of the story when Sunshine would go on a big backtracking infodump in the middle of action or dialogue or pretty much anything. Still, there were ...more

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