Sunshine

Mar 24, 2013 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: vamps-and-other-mythical-beasts, reviewed, fantasy-sci-fi, 2013, in-by-of-the-americas, 2008

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 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 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 are 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, upon reappearing, 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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Jun 08, 2010 Kat Kennedy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: kat-s-book-reviews

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 slowly kill me via...more

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Mar 31, 2011 Joel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, ya, mr-pointy

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, sometimes, Buf...more 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, sometimes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, don't -- generally, it is safe to say, vampires aren't creatures whose pictures you want to pin up in your locker. Yes, authors can rewrite the rules of vampirism all they want to make them easy to romanticize (I have a soul! Oh yeah? We'll I'm vegetarian), but it all still comes down to A) creatures of the night B) part of a race that, by and large, views humans as walking ketchup dispensers C) unflattering complexions. In Sunshine, the vampires are gross. They look like what they are, which is, if you will remember, dead. They are also rightly feared by the populace, but that might have more to do with the role they played in the vaguely defined Voodoo Wars that ravaged society some years before, to the point where what seems like a pretty nondescript small city is now the eighth largest remaining population in the U.S. In short, vampires: not very nice.

And yet, there's always the special one. But if Sunshine (not her real name, thankfully) can be the Buffy who befriends a vampire, at least she is a total screw-up in every other way (and I mean more of a screw-up than just that she pretends to trip on things and makes too many boys fall in love with her). She gives her mom hell. She barely graduated from high school. She dates a guy with too many tattoos. She's kind of a bitch. She's flawed, and fun to read about, which is important, because she's our narrator. But she is special, with an unknown magical heritage that saves her ass when she's kidnapped by bloodsuckers and chained up in a room with one of them. This turns out to be Constantine, who is that Special Vampire who doesn't eat people, but at least he's still pretty disgusting, as romantic heroes go. The no heartbeat thing would get pretty weird. Also the bathing in his blood, but that comes later.

In many ways, this is a Twilight-y book, and you can see why the publisher decided to repackage it in a sparkly teen edition, even though it is about adult characters who actually screw instead of lying in fields and gazing longingly at one another: There's a special girl. There's a vampire. There is a little bit of romance (though Sunshine has the good sense to be freaked out about it, and, at least, never describes anyone's beautiful chest). Also in both books nothing happens for long stretches of time, only to rush through an action-packed climax in just a few pages. (Oh, I forgot, both also involve scenes of googling and message board reading, which still isn't all that interesting.) The difference is that Robin McKinley can write, and instead of filling her pages with repetition and day-to-day mundanities (new word!), she creates a fun cast of supporting characters at the bakery where Sunshine works (I could almost write an entire separate review about the role baking plays in this book, but I didn't want to make anyone hungry) and puts real thought into the way you might react to a traumatic experience like almost being eaten. Like, you might throw yourself back into your work (mmm, cinnamon rolls!) even as you struggled to cope with the fallout, alienating your friends and loved ones in the bargain.

This is a really entertaining book that slowed down just a little too much in the middle for me, but it is much, much better than a phrase like "vampire romance" might imply. In a parallel dimension, this book is the famous one, and Stephanie Meyer, bless her heart, is selling her books to Kindle owners on Amazon, because writing is a nice little hobby but why do it full time when you are so bad at it?

Man, I really didn't mean to rag on Twilight so much. Sorry about that.

(Oh, p.s. to Karen -- sorry for failing at that whole tandem review thing. We can just pretend I wrote this a week ago.)(less)

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Oct 12, 2010 Tatiana rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ala-ya-2005, mythopoeic, 2010, urban-fantasy

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 urban fantasy that lack...more 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 urban fantasy that lacks originality, proper world-building and just plain satisfactory writing. McKinley didn't disappoint in this regard. I thought the plot was brilliant, especially the beginning and the ending - I am amazed nobody had used the whole chaining-to-the-walls-and-using-a-human-as-a-vamp-bait scenario before. The mythology was completely new and very inventive - I loved how creepy, nasty and otherwordly the vamps were. One gets tired of sparkly and sexy creatures that have nothing to distinguish them from humans except wondrous stamina and sexual prowess. Try writing about a girl falling for someone who looks and acts like Constantine in a convincing manner! That's a challenge in itself, I am sure. And the writing, well, McKinley has a remarkable command of the language.

But all these things that I loved about Sunshine were at the same time its negatives. I pretty much thought the book was way overwritten. Sometimes the mythology got so complicated I thought I was on some kind of drug-induced hallucinogenic "trip." And Sunshine herself. Good lord, the woman talked SO much to herself! By about page 200 she started to grate on my nerves so bad I needed a break from her "voice." This book badly needed some editing out of Sunshine's rambling internal monologue and some more dialog. Often reading Sunshine's thoughts was like reading McKinley's own blog - sometimes interesting, sometimes boring, with never-ending parenthesis, notes, *s, and P.S.'s. Weeding out about 100 pages of Sunshine's irrelevant musings would have made this book a much more enjoyable read.

Surprisingly, many things that annoyed readers of this book, didn't bother me. The cinnamon rolls - the bakery business was interesting to me, I thought it added a nice dimension to Sunshine's personality.

(view spoiler)

As for the sequel, I am fine without one. McKinley is still toying with the idea of maybe, possibly, one day, writing it. But I will tell you this for free, it will never happen. I have never seen her go back to her projects and I doubt it will happen this time. This I, actually, sort of understand and even respect - I have seen way too many sequels pulled out of the asses. Sometimes it is better not to force things out.

What else is there to say? It was an OK reading experience. From literary standpoint Sunshine is probably one of the strongest urban fantasy works, but in terms of entertainment it doesn't quite deliver. Ultimately, I don't think I would care to ever re-read this book again or read the sequel if it ever comes out. Too much work.(less)

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Mar 03, 2013 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21st-century, fiction, fantasy-and-scifi, goth-goth-baby, its-the-quiet-ones

I have the worst touch pad in the world on my computer, which just erased an entire review. So here's the short version:

The plot: unfocused, slow. It has a few exciting hot spots, spaced widely apart. The end is anti-climatic and doesn't feel worth all the build up. I wasn't thrilled with all the time she spent world-building, which didn't seem to make sense for a standalone novel in which most of that information would never be used or heard from again.

The characters: Sunshine herself was well-...more I have the worst touch pad in the world on my computer, which just erased an entire review. So here's the short version:

The plot: unfocused, slow. It has a few exciting hot spots, spaced widely apart. The end is anti-climatic and doesn't feel worth all the build up. I wasn't thrilled with all the time she spent world-building, which didn't seem to make sense for a standalone novel in which most of that information would never be used or heard from again.

The characters: Sunshine herself was well-drawn. McKinley spent a lot of time detailing her thought processes and letting us get to know her. Her voice was consistent, her fears realistic, and her choices fairly reasonable. Her day-to-day life was very fleshed out, and one of the strongest pieces of the novel. However, other than the lead protagonist and to a certain extent her sort-of hero (who, really, was a strong-and-silent-type archetype with a better vocabulary than usual), the characters in this book were very vaguely sketched or barely outlined at all. They were mostly plot devices or evidence of our character's background and what an awesome chick she is to have the devotion of these people. I wasn't hugely thrilled with the amount of the Special Snowflake Female stuff we had going on here. I hate when authors make a novel centered on a female and then make sure every other woman in the book is duly inferior. (There's one possible exception to that in this one, but I think even she is shown to be lesser by her choice of loyalties and choice to lie to her best friend.) A corollary I find just as irritating is showing her Special Snowflake-ness by the amount of men around her who are overprotective and adore her (even if they don't want to date her) and will do anything for her. There was a bit of that here, too. McKinley kept her use of this mild (I reeeally appreciated that I got to the end of the book and had little idea of what the narrator looked like except that she was skinny-too much to hope that that one would be left out- and nor did I know what the other women looked like either). But there were several pinches too much of it all the same.

And yet: The writing. McKinley is a great writer with a curious, thoughtful mind, and it shows all the way through. She's wonderful at producing an atmosphere and a rhythm that really gives you a sense of the world she's trying to convey, or the inside of the head she's trying to give you a peek into. Her many, many forays into describing the magic of the book, while distracting and, after awhile, a bit repetitive, were also interesting to read. You can tell she was just bursting to tell us her ideas about how the magic worked, and what it must feel like. She clearly took her time choosing her metaphors and making them appropriate for her character, and that really paid off. She really thought through her magic and wanted to explore the how and why and the experience... and managed to do it without taking away the mystery that makes reading about the mystical fun and even enthralling in the hands of the right writer.

She also did a wonderful job of grounding her magic-infused, supernatural haunted story in the experience of the every day. Her heroine worked at a bakery, which involved long hours and not great pay, and we heard about every single time she had to change shifts, work extra hours or deal with complaining customers. We heard about her car troubles and the practicalities of making bread in August. This allowed McKinley to infuse magic in the way that magic works best- seeping up through the cracks of everyday life, when people reach for it on their breaks, or dream about it in their precious few hours of consciousness after work hours are over. Her repeated interest in exploring the workings of the magic and the supernatural beings in the novel ended up making it a bit too regular a part of the routine, which was another problem with how often she went on those digressions. But overall, placing this story within the structure of the mundane still worked very well.

In the end, I appreciated the atmosphere, found one or two moments I connected with the character, and even felt a little sad when we whispered out at the end and I didn't know what was going to happen next. I would have read a sequel. Just goes to show you- even a half-done idea in the hands of a wonderful writer can be very much worth the time spent.

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Mar 02, 2012 Gloria Mundi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fairy-tales, my-own-personal-brand-of-cocaino, beauty-and-the-beast, fantasy, vamps, ohgodyeah, favourites, re-telling, coverlust

Thinking is bad for you. The heroine of this novel, Rae Blaise or Sunshine, as she is better known, finds this out the hard way after she drives out to the lake to have a think and avoid arguing with her mum. Because while there, she is kidnapped by a group of vampires, dressed in blood red silk and chained in a room with another vampire, Constantine. But clearly, Sunshine is a bright girl (I am still unsure exactly how old she is supposed to be, early twenties, I'd guess) and learns her lesson...more Thinking is bad for you. The heroine of this novel, Rae Blaise or Sunshine, as she is better known, finds this out the hard way after she drives out to the lake to have a think and avoid arguing with her mum. Because while there, she is kidnapped by a group of vampires, dressed in blood red silk and chained in a room with another vampire, Constantine. But clearly, Sunshine is a bright girl (I am still unsure exactly how old she is supposed to be, early twenties, I'd guess) and learns her lesson quickly and pretty much stops thinking from then on. At least enough for her latent powers to reveal themselves and take over her logical processes.

I am doing this all wrong, aren't I? Because, actually, I loved this book. I couldn't put it down. And even the fact that listening to Sunshine is like talking to someone with a severe case of ADD because she keeps diverting and sidetracking until you lose all sense of what she was talking about to begin with and the fact that the book was like the worst kind of tease, sucking you in, turning you on and dumping you with barely a hint of a resolution, no answers to most of the questions and no sequel in sight wouldn't put me off.

I liked Sunshine. Despite her ADD and obsession with baking (I hate cooking with a passion). She felt real. She was sometimes snarky, sometimes frustrating, sometimes puzzling but always interesting and complex and believable as a character.

I've never read any McKinley before but I new fairy tale retellings were usually her thing but that this wasn't quite her usual thing, being a gritty and dark urban tale about vampires. Yet I am not so sure. This is a dark vampire tale but with a healthy dose of fairy (tale) dust sprinkled all over it, I think, and some sunshine. It is a Beauty and the Beast story, which Sunshine tells to Constantine during their confinement and which, I hear, McKinley is a teeny bit obsessed with but it is not really a romance (damn it!).

Yes, Constantine is definitely the Beast of this piece. He is ugly and alien and he smells. No sparklingly brooding underwear models here. No sighing over anybody's eyes and beautiful chests. Yet Sunshine, and I along with her, grows to love him despite herself and the "resolution" to their relationship at the end, while it is incredibly frustrating in its unclarity, is also incredibly sweet (I did tell you this was a fairy tale, right?).

But back to the unclarity (and the biggest fattest BUT of this book). Questions. Questions, questions everywhere. Where did Sunshine's father and the entire Blaise family disappear to? What are the "bad spots"? Why does Sunshine's mum avoid her all the time and why did she leave her father? What precipitated the Voodoo Wars? Has the presense of supernatural beasties always been the reality of this world or have they just crawled out of the woodwork at some point? What is the Goddess of Pain? What is Mel? And so on and so forth. Answers are not forthcoming.

You know that scene in the middle where naked Sunshine lands on equally naked Constantine but, while he initially appears into this, he soon comes to his senses and won't put out and Sunshine is all frustrated with engorged labia and parts to match. Well, I swear McKinley put this in just to illustrate graphically how she was going to leave her readers at the end of this book. Coitus interruptus, are you bloody kidding me? I need the other two books (at least) in this series, which Mckinley is not writing.

I was going to take a star off for that but then, I know for a fact that I am now going to go read every single other book that McKinley has ever written and come back to this one over and over looking for that something that I have possibly missed but really just to spend some time with Con and Sunshine again, even if they are not doing anything new and Sunshine is mainly blathering on about her cinnamon rolls as big as her head. And if that doesn't make a book five star worthy, I don't know what does. (less)

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Mar 23, 2011 Mariel rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: personal jesus

Recommended to Mariel by: black celebration

I wish that Robin Mckinley's Sunshine never had to end. I almost didn't read it. I'd visit the fantasy shelf in the book shops and go "ooh um do I want to read this or not?" (Funny how the films and books I debate on are often the ones that I've loved the most.) Now, I visit the McKinley shelves, beaming at my favorites. "I wish I could read you for the first time again!"

I read the goodreads and amazon reviews. Some are favorable, others are not. I couldn't tell anyone if they'd like it or not....more I wish that Robin Mckinley's Sunshine never had to end. I almost didn't read it. I'd visit the fantasy shelf in the book shops and go "ooh um do I want to read this or not?" (Funny how the films and books I debate on are often the ones that I've loved the most.) Now, I visit the McKinley shelves, beaming at my favorites. "I wish I could read you for the first time again!"

I read the goodreads and amazon reviews. Some are favorable, others are not. I couldn't tell anyone if they'd like it or not. It's the difference between liking someone and not liking them. The kinds of people that you just click with when you first talk to them. Some grow on you. Sunshine could easily annoy anyone, it's hard to say. Personally, I loved Sunshine's voice. The rambling, yammering, babbling, run-on sentences, digressions (really? *gasp*!). Robin Mckinley's world building and Sunshine's exterior and inner lives were "This is where I live" taking me by the hand. I never wanted to leave. Sometimes quiet reflection is best. Those unnameable life things like falling in or out of love. I've often thought people made up reasons afterwards to put a finger on something that just plain is. Another thing I loved about this book is that those facts are the underlying, respectful quiet. The lust for life is vibrant. I loved it all. The taking by the hand and thought threads I didn't wanna let go of.

I didn't want to let go of the darkness either. McKinley made it necessary. Like how the best artists will see the beauty in the mundane, McKinley saw the darkness in everything. Turning out the lights and seeing what is really there. Rather, it would be hearing because most can't see in the dark. Star Wars lifeforce stuff. McKinley is freaking Yoda. Put your ears to the grindstone (as Con lives in stone! Right-on, Mariel! Idiot) and all kinds of things slither out from the bottom. I loved the fantasy of what had been trapped getting free. Owning up to the dark.

McKinley is the best at writing those haunting scenes that stick out in my mind. (I don't wanna spoil for anyone who hasn't read it...) The Hero and the Crown had a great part of a talking dragon's head infecting the heroine with its sickness beyond death. That stood out to me and I liken it to my own negative thoughts during times of depression. A dragon's head mounted on my wall would taunt me. (I inherited my grandpa's shark's head on a wall mount. I'd get rid of it if it weren't one of two things I have of his [d'oh and don't forget the cat, Mariel!]. My birds like to sit in its head. Probably shouldn't have reminded myself of that. I'm just the kind of nutjob who will make up a shark voice and use it to threaten the little guys...)
Sunshine has no shortage of those scenes. When Sunshine meets Con. There was no doubt that this book was going down in my favorites list after that scene.
I pictured Con the vampire to look like Dave Gahan during the Songs of Faith and Devotion Depeche Mode era. (Depeche Mode's In Your Room video, for example.) Um I kinda have a type. Dave Gahan/Jeremy Northam/Michael Imperioli/Mitchell on uk Being Human show (sigh they are doing an American remake). (Mitchell is a wonderful vampire character. I love his struggles to be human. Much like humanity struggles to be human. Badly.) Yeah, he's sexy but that's just me being a pervert. The point of this story was never about romance. It's just about attraction. Mervyn Peake wrote in his wonderful Gormenghast books that Fuchsia was naturally more attracted to the dark than to the light. It's the way that some people grow in directions.
I do wish that McKinley would write a sequel. She has said that she might eventually write another set in the same 'verse. There was more that I'd like to know about the magical elements. Otherwise, I just wish it went on because it was that absorbing that I could forget about everything else. Why can't every book do that?

P.s. One thing everyone is right about is that the cinnamon rolls sound delicious.(less)

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Jul 26, 2011 Sean rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: frequently-reread, fantasy, award-winners, horror

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, modern, fla...more

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Oct 29, 2007 Miss_otis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: would-buy, fantasy-or-fantastical, awesome, au

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 rea...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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Feb 19, 2011 Margaret rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction, vampires, favorites, authors-mn

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 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 he feels like it rather than when I do). On subsequent rereads, I've managed to avoid staying up all night, but it's been a real test of my willpower.

Sunshine is set in an alternate universe, where there are vampires, demons, and weres as well as humans, those who survived the Voodoo Wars but are now threatened by the increase in the vampire population. Rae Seddon, a baker nicknamed "Sunshine" for her affinity for sunlight, has an unusual interest in the Others, but no real contact with them...until the night she's kidnapped by a group of vampires. Her fellow prisoner is also a vampire, and their joint captivity creates an uneasy alliance. Even after their escape, Sunshine and Con are still linked, and Sunshine (another of McKinley's typically strong, practical heroines) discovers more about her world, her past, and her own powers as she and Con work together to defeat the vampire who captured them.

McKinley excels at creating richly detailed worlds, and she's done that again with Sunshine. The world is like ours in many respects (Sunshine describes something at one point as "half Quasimodo, half Borg"), but chillingly different in others -- in one memorable passage, Sunshine wonders about whether phoenixes exist: "I think the phoenix has at least a fifty-fifty chance of being true, because it's nasty. What this world doesn't have is the three-wishes, go-to-the-ball-and-meet-your-prince, happily-ever-after kind of magic. We have all the mangling and malevolent kinds. Who invented this system?" Con himself is Other: not just a human with long teeth, he is inhuman, which makes Sunshine's unwilling attraction to him particularly intriguing (and yet another of McKinley's variations on the "Beauty and the Beast" theme, which she makes even more apparent by having Sunshine retell the fairy tale to Con during their imprisonment).

Altogether, Sunshine is an unusual outing for McKinley in its subject matter and world, but her wonderful writing, worldbuilding, and characterization are fully evident and as compelling as ever. Oh, and you might want to have a couple of good cinnamon rolls lying around, because believe me, you'll be hungry for them by the time you're done with the book (I wish McKinley had included Sunshine's recipe for those).(less)

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Dec 18, 2007 Jarrah rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: vampires, genre-urbanfantasy, author-robinmckinley, genre-adultspeculativefiction, weres, setting-postapocalypse, demons, setting-alternatereality, spells, country-america

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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Feb 29, 2008 Yati rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy, vampires, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I liked the story and the characters, but at the same time the narrative made my head hurt. Possibly it's because of the colloquial first person POV that sometimes goes off in long tangents. Long, long tangents.

This book was recommended by a number of people, mostly on LJ (and mostly by people who were frothing at the mouth at Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series). I duly borrowed a copy from the library. And my sister read it too, thanks to that quote from Neil Gaiman on the cover. She’s such a Ga...more I liked the story and the characters, but at the same time the narrative made my head hurt. Possibly it's because of the colloquial first person POV that sometimes goes off in long tangents. Long, long tangents.

This book was recommended by a number of people, mostly on LJ (and mostly by people who were frothing at the mouth at Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series). I duly borrowed a copy from the library. And my sister read it too, thanks to that quote from Neil Gaiman on the cover. She’s such a Gaiman fan, XD.

I wanted to like this. It ended up just being ok in my list. I have a few problems with it, mostly with the way the narrative jumps. The book is in the first person, Sunshine’s point of view, and written rather colloquially. I don’t have real problems with the POV or even the language; my problem is how information is presented. We need to know more about the world of course, this post-apocalyptic earth where vampires and demons roam, but there’s just too much exposition, and it’s given in chunks. And the narrative goes off in sudden tangents — sometimes for exposition purposes, sometimes just to point out something that catches Sunshine’s fancy at the moment, and sometimes it’s very, very long. She’s about to stab someone with a table knife, and there’s suddenly pages and pages on the virtues of using stakes made of other things — I think it was apple wood and ivy? — instead of stainless steel. It just throws me off. It also made the book unnecessarily bloated.

The asides (in parenthesis) and the many dashes littered across the book made me pause as well. It’s, uh. It’s too much like my own writing, I guess. The day I manage to send an email out without parentheses or em dashes in it will be the day the world ends. I keep trying to break the habit, but it’s hard, and seeing someone so comfortable doing something I’m trying to stop gives me a really bizarre feeling, especially when I realise how distracting those asides are.

I like the character Sunshine. I love her almost obsessive passion with baking and bread and cinnamon rolls, and how much she loves sunshine and how she can soak it all up. I love how she’s normal except when she’s not, and how, despite everything, she wants “to go on making cinnamon rolls”. I like her relationship with everyone at the bakery — Charlie especially, and Mel. Con certainly piqued my interest, but in honest truth I’m glad he wasn’t always there. (My sister wished Con was around more. No, no thanks. This book is about Sunshine, not . . . some vampire romance story. If there was a sequel, then I wouldn’t mind more Con. We need explanations, after all. And I wouldn’t mind, also, more explanation on Mel. Just who is that dude? Also, quite randomly, I keep interchanging him with Hank from Someplace to be Flying when I think of the book, and I’m not certain why. It is possibly because of the tattoos.)

The book can be laugh-out-loud funny at points, thanks to Sunshine’s quirky observations about a lot of things. Though I have to wonder: are Carthaginian hells worse than any other sort of hell? Why the qualifier?

Some things aren’t explained, and the book felt like a set up to something more. I was surprised that there were no plans for a sequel.

Now I shall stay away from vampires. At least for a while.(less)

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Mar 28, 2009 Annie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2009

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 endearing....more

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Jan 05, 2008 Jon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fictions

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 near the end)....more

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Dec 11, 2012 Tim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This story is the perfect antidote for those afflicted with merely being aware of Twilight's existence. Yes, there is a (seemingly) altruistic vampire, and yes, the heroine develops some awkward romantic affections for him. But that's pretty much where the similarities end.

First, the world is much darker, as one seriously haunted by vampires would be. I mean, really, how do you keep at bay a plague that can grow exponentially and does not naturally die off?

Second, vampires don't sparkle; they o...more

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Nov 10, 2012 April rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya, fantasy, library, own, vampire

Sunshine is very enjoyable. With the onslaught of vampire books, it would seem there is nothing fresh within the genre. By this I mean, I feel a lot of those books are same story different name, maybe variable A is changed, maybe it's variable, you get the point. Well, Sunshine is different and it definately blew me away.
Read the rest of my review here

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Mar 10, 2009 Cathy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, horror, mythology, paranormal, urban, read-in-2009, magic-users, vampire

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

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Sep 18, 2010 Hirondelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: urban-fantasy, fantasy, food, rereads

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 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 inspiration. But for the list of fictional books I would love to read ( nod to another McKinley book) would be Rae Seddon´s cookbooks.

A few thoughts:

- this book is a lot like Dragonhaven. I had spotted they were alike, but only now on rereading this how much they really are alike, maybe I should call them mentally the "tough" McKinley books, they are very different in tone from the other dreamier, gentler of her novels. They are also non-dog books which is a bit of a pity, I love her fictional dogs. Back to comparing, both books are first person narratives, set in very different alternate worlds and where lots of exposition about that world is necessary. Exposition which must came from a 1st person PoV which can be a bit jarring. I think the author does it well, but not sure that can be done seamlessly, not for worlds sufficiently different and books relatively short, and not all readers will like it (I do). On both Dragonhaven and Sunshine the narrators are not *likable* or well integrated, or perhaps even neurotypical ( Jake. I think there are hints enough on Dragonhaven) narrators. I loved both books, but I can see where that would bother a lot of people specially if they need characters to be likable to like them (I will admit I do not have to, though not sure I can explain why). And on both books, major stuff happens within the rules of its universe that changes how the rules thought to be true.

- Has anybody found that the first part of this book feels like a novella and (almost)complete on its own? Enough exposition of the rules of the universe, action, personal discoveries, a conclusion ( and a wonderful "last" line which just makes me go wow). Without any sort of evidence at all it feels to me like the novel grew out of a novella type story ( the first part). I do not mean that in a padded-extraneous-story way, but in a good way, that the interesting things sometimes are what is after the story. And this relates to perhaps the need, or not, for a sequel which I was just getting into:

- There are many things about that universe we do not know about and which I want to know - more on Con and his difference take on vampirism, more on the goddess of pain, more on Mel, more on the Blaises. But it ends well, without cliffhangers, and with a feeling that this story is always about there being more story. Do we really need a sequel? I don´t know. I would read it absolutely and love finding out more about that universe, but I am not sure if it truly is required.

- this is a crazy, but the one novel Sunshine really reminded me of was The Lord of the Rings particularly The Fellowship, the sense of ominous evil threatening, though without any clear plan of how it could be defeated. Or not so crazy, but also reminded me a bit of Barbara Hambly´s great ( horrific and creepy and sort of anti vampire fandom) Those who Hunt the Night, that vampires are *horror*.

- now for something spoilerific, rereading I was impressed how well written and planned and plotted it all was. Except for one small detail, I can not understand why Rae would suddenly see significance in the number of Mel´s live tattoos, when she tells us about it before without seeing anything on it. She is different than before, yes, but I do not understand it well enough. Maybe on a sequel, we find out more about Mel which makes sense of it. (less)

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Aug 10, 2010 Marija rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: urban-fantasy, favorites

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 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 quality to the prose—like a conversation between the narrator, Sunshine, and the reader. It has a natural feel to it, that I quite liked, though I also think this is where many readers are put off. Because like a conversation, the story doesn’t necessarily follow a straight path; Sunshine will say something and then will follow it up with a tangential description before going back to her original train of thought. However it’s not always superfluous information that she’s giving, rather it’s her way of providing some background to the story she’s telling.

The story doesn’t follow the normal path of a paranormal romance. In this post-apocalyptic world, a natural antipathy exists between vampires and humans, and even though Constantine is portrayed as a sort of good guy, he doesn’t necessarily lose his menacing qualities. Nevertheless he is a likable character and I did enjoy the pairing. A sort of awkwardness exists in their relationship, as Sunshine tries to come to terms with and accept a partnership—even a friendship—with this vampire, her sworn enemy. The same goes for Constantine. I liked how the book ends, that it remains true to the characters and the relationship they’ve forged over the course of the novel, even though it’s not certain as to what the future may bring.

Also, the symbolism is rather well done from the charms down to Sunshine’s true name: Raven Blaise—the union of dark and light... a play of light and shadow, a theme that runs prevalent throughout the book. It’s also a sensual book, but not just in terms of sex. The rich descriptions both color and stimulate the senses—from sight to sound to taste to texture.

I think I’m going to agree with Neil Gaiman’s summation of the book calling it a pretty much near perfect read.
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Mar 18, 2012 Jillian -always aspiring- marked it as halted · review of another edition

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 vampires. . .but the execution o...more

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Sep 10, 2007 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: dark urban fantasy fans

Shelves: urbanfantasy

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, it is fantastic....more

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Aug 11, 2011 Ceridwen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Ceridwen by: Elizabeth

Shelves: alternate-history, necrophilia, sexy-nihilists, the-future-is-now, young-adult, fantasy

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 the one in...more 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 the one in Sunshine for a long while. It starts with a lot of chat and gossip, laying out this relationship of that, origins, trivia. I'm just snuggling down for a sprawling family drama, and then McKinley his me with it: this is a profoundly alternate future, after a magical world war that decimated much of the world's population. She never backstories this too much, which I count as a strength, not just because I bore easily when world-building builds the world too worldbuildily, but also because I felt it made sense for the narrator to have a hazy sense of history. The Vietnam War was going on when I was born, and I couldn't give anything but the sketchiest of timelines for the conflict itself, but I could identify aspects of the culture now that could be traced back to not just the conflict itself, but the secondary social conflicts going on in the US at the time. And that's the way Sunshine talks about the magical wars, not with a series of dates of skirmishes, but as the starting point for world view and cultural expressions. I mean, this is a little dorky, but I really enjoyed the really concrete ways that Sunshine talked about neighborhood activism, civic boundaries, hell, even building codes.

Then another hit when Sunshine - her real name is Rae, thank heavens - is abducted by ghoulish vampires and left like livestock with another captive vampire who appears to be starving. It's a hideous, claustrophobic situation, made better by the fact that none of these vamps, not even the captive with whom she comes to an understanding of mutual necessity, is anything but an inhuman monster. I'm not a huge fan of vampires in contemporary fiction, I think because the whole sex/death thing tends to be weighted too far to the sex side of the equation. One time when I was living in the dorms, and my only source of DVDs was a small town public library - gather round, children, and hear how I walked uphill both ways - I checked out the creaky old 1932 film Vampyr. The titular vampire - it's in German, hence the emo spelling - is a ghoul, an old woman who crawls out of her grave and murders. When they put her down, it's bloody and messy, not a discrete spray of ash or some cheery fire. You've gotta get your hands in it, death. These vamps are more like that ghoulish woman than they are like certain neutered sparklers I can think of. (Oh, hai, I'm ur one Twilight reference in this review, cuz I think they may be obligatory.)

I'm not going to get into the latter plot too much, partially because the mechanics of it are mostly gone to me, but Sunshine spends the rest of the book in a profound state of shock and trauma, babbling out her ordinary existence almost like a ward against death and its embodiments. She's a talker, Rae, as a narrator, often spending hundreds of words on her job, her baking, the minutia of arranging her bandages. But especially the baking. It was a little frustrating at first for me, and likely it will annoy lots of readers, but eventually I learned to stop worrying and love the baking. For one thing, I just like when characters work at real jobs. And all the politics and hierarchy of a family, within a kitchen, within a restaurant, within a community were a smart way to convey this world to me. But then I also liked the way her voluminous chatter was a sign of her near-death trauma and her working through it through life and it's mundanity.

I know there's other stuff I wanted to say, but I can't think of it now. I'll just end with some stray thoughts:

I liked that Sunshine has a boyfriend, even though she has this weird, glancingly sexual connection with the vampire. I liked that she and her boyfriend had a relationship full of silence and lacuna, but that it was still real in its own, soundless way. The scene where she and her boyfriend make love in the sunlight was one that stuck with me, partially because it was so fragile and unsaid.

I enjoyed the descriptions of the vampire's home, which was so cliche and overwrought. It was a clever nod to the vampire conventions, one that Con, the vampire, shrugs about. Yes, well, that's what created me, and I won't tear it down, but that's not what I am.

The magic in this book works so well for me, because it it was humdrum and daily. The abandoned charms were especially nice, shuttering in the glovebox.

The ending? Ah, the ending. No spoilers, but it is open and unfinished, in a way, hand in hand, and out into the darkness. It would be more than nice if McKinley revisited this world, though I do not think she will. I'll just comfort myself by imagining good things, and that's a kind of completeness in itself. In a book about adolescence's end, the leap is as important as the landing. (less)

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Apr 23, 2013 Heather rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

The problem with RMcK fans is that we tend to be devoted. Possibly rabid. We would follow her off a cliff because we're pretty certain she can do no wrong. But hell hath no fury like an RMcK fan who feels betrayed -- because she didn't write what she normally writes or there was no happy ending or the prose got a bit thick or she used a bad word.

I am no exception and I had reservations the first time through Sunshine. Also the second. But I have yet to read anything by RMcK that didn't grow on m...more The problem with RMcK fans is that we tend to be devoted. Possibly rabid. We would follow her off a cliff because we're pretty certain she can do no wrong. But hell hath no fury like an RMcK fan who feels betrayed -- because she didn't write what she normally writes or there was no happy ending or the prose got a bit thick or she used a bad word.

I am no exception and I had reservations the first time through Sunshine. Also the second. But I have yet to read anything by RMcK that didn't grow on me -- subtly, inexorably -- until I am eventually as nuts about that book as I am about all the rest.

I kind of think -- despite the fact that I caught a typo -- that this book may be perfect, in all of its dense, discursive glory. And this is why I think that: there are great whopping sections where I have no real clear picture in my mind of what is going on. I can't imagine most of the entire last third. And then there's the vagueness in the plot. We don't know what exactly the wars were about or where this story is set or what the deal is with Rae's real family. We don't know for sure about Mel or Mrs. Bialosky or the "goddess of pain." And then there's the ending with all of the lingering questions that go unanswered.

And yet.

There's some weird magic writerly thing that happens that I will now utterly fail to describe where the story transitions from inexplicable chunks of prose to clear, haunting images that feel burned onto my brain. She has written something with so much otherness I can't imagine it, but that is simultaneously so vivid I understand it anyway.

Other things about this book: I don't normally read or like books with settings that are distopian or post-apocalyptic. (A high school pet peeve -- why are adults convinced young people must like to read about the end of the world?) I make an exception in this case because RMcK took a different approach to her apocalypse (and there's the whole following her off a cliff thing.) It's almost more unnerving, if less depressing, than the standard nuclear winter because the reader doesn't know where in the apocalypse we are. Is it over? Have we survived? This is still a place where people have enough food and drive cars and go to the dentist. Only what price did the world pay and what might still be coming? We only get hints.

Sunshine has the usual RMcK treatment of love -- it is deathless, eternal, all-consuming, all-important, all those romantic girly things, until the world needs saving when it is put resolutely aside. Which is kind of harsh, especially since RMcK mostly writes YA. But necessary harsh. A good, get-over-yourself kind of harsh. RMcK's heroes are also of a certain type of which I get fonder the older I get. They're all good at letting the female character be whoever she is and whoever she needs to be. Deathless, eternal, all-consuming, all-important relationships, with space. My kind of men.

I kind of desperately want a sequel; although, one of my favorite things about RMcK is that she doesn't pander by writing sequels. And I think she has said pretty adamantly that there isn't going to be one. That kind of breaks my heart, but then her books always do.

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Feb 22, 2013 Erika rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I want to like this book. But, Rambling does not make for good book. It reads as if it is yet to be edited. Like someone has just been writing without stopping, which explains the lack of chapters. I've been trying to read this book for about a million years! And happily put it down to read another book. This book has the potential to be good, but just needs to be reviewed and republished.

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Nov 13, 2010 Qt rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: humor, horror-supernatural

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!

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Oct 07, 2011 Contrarius rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy

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. There is a lot...more

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Feb 01, 2009 Reba Chin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: new-author, 2009

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 was currently taking pla...more

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Aug 25, 2012 Noelle rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya, scifi-book-club, sci-fi-fantasy

Eh.

As an antidote to vampire romances that don’t seem to feature actual vampires, I suppose it’s pretty good, but I just couldn’t get into it. The first person narration may have created a full bodied character, but all that introspection got in the way of, you know, things happening.

Throughout the story, you may think that action is about take place, but then Sunshine will head off on a tangent about baking cinnamon rolls. Again. Several pages later, you’ll get back to the thing that was happen...more

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Jun 04, 2011 Christina rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 f...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Amelia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: urban-fantasy, horror, murder-mystery, romance, distopia

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.

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Does anyone know... is this book at all like Twilight?	43	133	May 14, 2013 09:31am
Belletristernas b...: Sunshine av Robin McKinley	3	8	Mar 04, 2013 10:57am

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avg rating	preview: Sunshine Goodreads rating: 3.81 (18991 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8088.Sunshine?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309203987l/8088.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8088.Sunshine?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Sunshine by Robin McKinley[/url]

Sunshine

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