Title SunshineAuthor Robin McKinley
Genre Science Fiction
Category Paranormal Romance
Rating D+
Summary Rae "Sunshine" is a seemingly normal 25-year-old who works at her family's coffee shop/cafe, she's dating a normal guy, but things become decidedly un-normal when she's captured by a gang of vampires and locked in a house as a "gift" for another vampire. But she escapes... and helps the vampire (Constantine) escape and then finds that she's got all sorts of latent magical powers that, when combined with Constantine's, are down-right formidable.
First Line "It was a dumb thing to do, but it wasn't that dumb. There hadn't been any trouble out at the lake in years. And it was so exquisitely far from the rest of my life."
Review This book was just kind of okay for me. It moved fast enough, in general terms, but there were a few places were the book would get stuck. Most often it was when Sunshine was dealing with the "police" who were responsible for keeping Other attacks (vampires, were-creatures, demons, etc.) under control. The back story of the mythical creatures and the bureaucracy of other-handling were pretty boring.
But the action sequences and romance sequences (as Sunshine vacillates between her human boyfriend and Constantine) were pretty interesting and kept things moving at a good clip. The climax was dramatic, but the denouement was boring... I skimmed. It was weird, in my opinion, because it felt like Sunshine wasn't making a decision about how her life would turn out in the end. She does thinking and introspection, but nothing is ever really "decided." The book didn't feel like it would be part of a series, so the end was pretty unsatisfying.
Additionally, McKinley uses some non-traditional prose, writing like a stream of consciousness, and it gets a little tedious to keep up because the thoughts are so swirled and divergent (and not entirely interesting). The book was okay, a nice escape read if you've been in something heavy for a while, but nothing that really knocked my socks off. It felt like a grown-up Twilight.
Recommendation People who haven't had enough Bella & Edward in their life (or want a racier Bella & Edward) would probably enjoy this one.
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4 comments:
Great review! A grown-up Twilight - I like that. I was also underwhelmed with Sunshine when I read it earlier this year. It had great promise, but never delivered. Here's a link to my review if you're interested :)
Sunshine: A Book Review
Interesting -- I love this book, and for me one of the things I love best is Sunshine's voice and her stream-of-consciousness narration. She says things that get stuck in my head as things I wish I'd said myself, and her unedited thoughts make her seem like a very real person to me, which is sometimes hard to find. I know what you mean about some unevenness to the pacing, though -- on re-reads there are parts that I skip. Not that I don't think they're important to the story -- but I've read them once and don't really need to read them again.
I don't think this one is for me. Love the part about it simply being a grown-up Twilight. I, for one, have had enough Edward and Bella in my life.
I read this book back in January. I really enjoyed the read. I did not connect with a "Twilight type" of read.
The great thing about all the books out there is that we do not all have to like the same stuff! yeah! **smile**
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