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Jul 22, 2010

Mary-Beth rated it:

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 thin More...

23 comments like (92 people liked it)

Oct 07, 2011

Joel rated it:

Here is a useful tip, should you ever find yourself face-to-face with a vampire: they are living corpses that eat people. They are not sun-sparkling, abstinent forever-teens. Staying inside all day and being forced to personally kill all of your food doesn't bode well for your mental health (not to mention the fact that you have been alive so long, you've had to re-buy all your Beatles albums in like five different formats).

Robin McKinley gets this the way Stephanie Meyer or even, s More...

33 comments like (44 people liked it)

Nov 05, 2011

Tatiana rated it:

I didn't know much about this book going in - vampires and cinnamon rolls - that was about it. Therefore, I, of course, was quite surprised to learn Sunshine was a hardcore urban fantasy novel. Quite a departure for Robin McKinley known for her fairy tale retellings. This book was nothing like she ever wrote before, that's for sure. I didn't know she had it in her to write something so tech-heavy, at times sexy and in such a perky "voice."

Now, I love to complain about new u More...

23 comments like (19 people liked it)

May 17, 2008

Elizabeth rated it:

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); 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 time to More...

16 comments like (76 people liked it)

Jul 26, 2011

Sean rated it:

I've liked Robin McKinley in a low-level way for the past ten years or so. I really liked Beauty, The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword, and when I've seen a new McKinley book I've generally tried to pick it up and read it, for old time's sake. I thought I was fairly familiar with her style and tone.

Which is why I was completely unprepared for Sunshine. Who knew McKinley had a dark, experimental, inventive, alternate-universe/vampire novel in her? Who knew she had an engaging, mode More...

6 comments like (10 people liked it)

Oct 29, 2007

Miss_otis rated it:

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 More...

4 comments like (20 people liked it)

Jun 08, 2010

Kat rated it:

Okay, so I seriously pondered over whether to give this book three stars or four. In the end, I DID enjoy it so I felt generous and gave it four, but it's not without its faults.

Once, when I was a little kid, my parents bought me my favourite ice cream. There's actually only one kind of ice cream that I actually like and that's mint choc chip. Only they bought this MASSIVE bowl of it with a banana in it and extra chocolate sauce. I can only guess that they'd finally decided to sl More...

33 comments like (39 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2011

Margaret rated it:

When I picked up Sunshine for the first time and realized that Robin McKinley had written a vampire novel, I was almost horrified: it seemed a far cry from Damar and retold fairy tales, and vampire novels are certainly not usually my thing. But McKinley is easily one of my top ten favorite writers, so I sat down with it one night and got so sucked into it (pardon the pun) that I stayed up most of the night finishing it (which is a bigger deal than it used to be, with a toddler who gets up when h More...

14 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 18, 2007

Jarrah rated it:

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...

2 comments like (16 people liked it)

Feb 18, 2010

Yati rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Mar 28, 2009

Kristianne rated it:

This is my first Robin McKinley book and I'm sorry to say that it'll probably be my last. I know she has a large fan-base and I know that she is critically acclaimed but I just couldn't get into her writing. Even if Neil Gaiman says it's 'Pretty much perfect.'

The whole novel is written like one giant info-dump with barely any dialogue or interaction between characters. It's made up mostly of the character's internal reflections and while she's certainly quirky, I didn't find Sunshine More...

11 comments like (33 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2008

Jon rated it:

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't find it overwhelmingly or explicitly romantic (except maybe More...

1 comment like (11 people liked it)

Mar 10, 2009

Cathy rated it:

Weird. Lovely. Haunting. Frustrating. Odd. Incomplete. Appetizing. Disgusting. A very different book than most I read. It was strange to read about 1/2, take a break and read the new Patricia Briggs book, and come back. It really emphasized the difference. This book took 4 times as long to read, although the same size roughly. It just did not flow along the same way, mostly intentionally I think. Sunshine's path was complicated, so was the reader's. I did enjoy the book, but it was more of a lit More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2011

Hirondelle rated it:

Lots of people seem to want RM to write a sequel to this. After one reread, what I truly demand is the cookbook. Perhaps wisely the author avoids too many details about the cooking/baking, which is maybe wise, readers with different baking skills might find it obvious or ludicrous or something, but the references are all so tempting. I really want to know the secret for Bitter Chocolate death! And I am half-seriously thinking of compiling a list of everything Rae bakes during this book just for More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Oct 04, 2010

Marija rated it:

Ooh, this is very good. It’s like McKinley’s post-apocalyptic take on the Beauty and the Beast tale. And I think it’s even better than her two retellings of that fairytale. There’s a different feel to this book, if you were to compare it to her other novels. In the past few weeks I’ve read a number of her fairytales and they all share a common voice in the way the story’s told and how the events are fleshed out. They’re more traditional with plain storytelling. Sunshine has a more personal quali More...

6 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Laura rated it:

This book had been suggested to me by a friend in one of my Yahoo book groups who is also a big fan of urban fantasy. When I finally got down to it in my TBR stack I could see why. I know a book is good when I fall in love with the main vamp character (Henry Fitzroy in Tanya Huff's "Blood Books" comes immediately to mind). Well, I fell for Con in this novel. Just an excellent urban fantasy, and one I highly reccommend. I was turning pages all the way through, and the end...well, i More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Aug 11, 2011

Ceridwen rated it:

I've been falling behind on my reviewing, and as a consequence, my memory begins to drift and the shape of the thing looses focus. Add in the fact I felt kind of bowled over by the torrential first person narrator in this one, and a few weeks after my read, I have this clear, loud image of Sunshine, the character, still ringing in my mind, and a series of afterimages burnt on my eyes, and not such a good grasp on connectives and plot. So.

I don't think I've read an opening as good as t More...

29 comments like (40 people liked it)

Nov 13, 2010

Qt rated it:

3 1/2 stars. I liked it, and I loved the humor--it seems like it's set in an interesting and well-thought-out world, too. I was often confused and not quite sure what was going on, and it seemed like the ending didn't exactly explain everything (maybe there is a sequel?). BUT, I did love all of the food references, and the humor, and it was nice to read a vampire book that wasn't terribly gory!

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 13, 2011

Sunny rated it:

2 stars

Painful to Read

This could have been such a great book but....it was about 300 pages too long.

Let me tell you I am so exhausted after reading this book. It was a long book, about 475 pages, but only about 200 pages needed to be in the book. The author went on about things that had no importance to the book. I thought about stabbing a pencil though my eye because I had to sit though about 20 page to get one little part of the story. The story as good More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Oct 07, 2011

Contrarius rated it:

Hmmmm. I can't quite decide about this book. I think it's one of those books where the first book of the series is filled with world-building details, so there isn't as much room for plots as in books 2, 3, and so on. The only problem with that theory is that this is a standalone book, and not part of a series. So, we're left with a book that has tons and tons of background information, and not nearly as much action as it might contain otherwise.

Now, this *is* an interesting book. Ther More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 01, 2009

Reba rated it:

MY REVIEW ON MY BLOG

WARNING: Reading this book will make you crave a cinnamon roll before you're through! I lasted until about p 272 before I had to go out and get one.

I loved how immediately attached I became to Rae aka Sunshine. From the get-go I could relate to her stream of consciousness narration, her witty asides, and I enjoyed how she would tell important (for the purposes of plot and character investment on my part) pieces of backstory right in the middle of what More...

3 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jun 21, 2011

Christina rated it:

I thought this was such a great book. I don't understand why in the world Robin wouldn't continue it on as a series since that is the exactly feel the book has. It felt like the beginning of what was going to be a new brilliant imaginative series & boom she drops the bomb it will never have a sequel! What in world is this woman thinking??? Why write something like that, lay all the foundation of the world & the characters & then kill it? I don’t get it & I know I’m not the only fan of this book More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Aug 10, 2011

Amelia rated it:

This books was hard to get into and I am not sure I even liked the ending, but it sucks you in and won't let you go once you get going. Great take on the future and how not that much has changed.

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 14, 2008

Ryan rated it:

I have my alarm clock tuned to NPR as that gets me out of bed and away from it fast, fast. One morning I awoke to hear Nancy Pearl offering summer vacation reading. Weird, I thought she was dead. Anyway, she suggested this one. As I have enjoyed a couple vampire books, I followed her recommendation.
I wish I hadn't. Sunshine is the main character, she works in a bakery and has a little community together with her mom, boss (married to her mom), various friends, and her boyfriend. The w More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Apr 01, 2009

Cosmic Sher rated it:

I was extremely surprised and thrilled by this book. After the disappointment of the Twilight Series, I really am wary of reading 'soft' paranormal novels that aren't racy or classically gory. But, McKinley is foremost a wonderful storyteller with a way of drawing you inside the character's mind and taking you on a journey of self-exploration with them.

Her take on vampires and the supernatural world is at the same time classic and unique. She keeps the lines of good vs. evil a bit f More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Jun 15, 2011

Emily rated it:

Ok so in general I'm not really big into the vampire thing. I've read Twilight and I enjoyed it and I've read Dracula and I enjoyed that but that was the extent of my vampire repetoire.

I was looking around in the library for a quick and easy page-turner to take my mind off of some things. So, I decided to try Sunshine out. It was in the "Teen" section next to the two other Robin McKinley books I have read. I should have researched this a little bit more before I picked it o More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 20, 2011

Caitlin rated it:

Set in a world of magic and wars between humans and vampires, Sunshine is an interesting addition to any bookshelf. Sunshine (or Rae), a baker in her mid-twenties, had a pretty ordinary life until the night she went out to the lake for some peace and tranquility, and was instead captured by vampires. She is pulled into the supernatural world against her will with her unlikely vampire ally, Con, and must make peace with her magic-user ancestry while struggling with media and police attention for More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 13, 2011

Jillian -always aspiring- added it

Sigh. WAY back in February, I started this book. . .and then I stopped because I thought, "Okay, I should love this. WHY DON'T I LOVE THIS?!"

I have to say that, though I think Robin McKinley has some really great ideas, she's not one actually to EXECUTE them very well. The world is fantastic, the characters are fleshed out. . .but where's the spark? I thought this story had all the potential in the world when I found out that it began with a girl held captive by vampire More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 08, 2011

Sath rated it:

Several years ago, there was a devastating war between Humans and The Others (magical creatures such as vampires, werewolves and demons). The war, nicknamed the 'voodoo wars', left the world riddled with magical 'bad spots', where black magic thrives, and everything is wrong. There is an uneasy tension left behind, the vampires may have been defeated, but they're clearly gaining power again, many recent suspected vampire kils leads to a nervous populace. The SOF (Special Other Forces), is a s More...

6 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 03, 2011

Tracey rated it:

I love Constantine, he is terrifying, menacing and very sexy, ok his is a little stinky!

But after a few drinks its all I need in a vampire. He is the strong silent type, not many words but lots of passion. The writing is beautiful, it just flows. But for me not enough of Constantine, really he was the main reason for reading this book.

I’m a junkie, almost to get off for the first time, then to be denied, damn you Const.

All I wanted was more of him, but unfo More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

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