Sunshine by Robin McKinley Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Sunshine
Book Review: Better than Chocolate (and not really a vampire book)
Summary: 5 Stars
I should say from the start that I do believe Robin McKinley could rewrite the dictionary and it would be interesting, so I'm biased. I have good reason to be biased. McKinley's skills as a storyteller, as a writer, as a voice for her characters and her worlds is unparallelled. Sunshine is not a book about vampires. They are there and they are central to the story, but the book is so much more than that. The best part of the book is that afore mentioned voice. I am not usually a fan of first person storytelling, but Sunshine is full of wry wit and a self-deprecatingly quirky combination of realism, independence, and fancy. I applaud the author for going in a new (if slightly Buffyesque) direction.
This book obviously isn't to everyone's taste, but the writing is still superb and I highly recommend it.
If it helps, my personal list of Robin McKinley favourites is: The Hero & the Crown, The Blue Sword, Deerskin, and now in 4th place -- Sunshine.
Book Review: Blood and chocolate
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't generally read books that are festering with vampires, but "Sunshine" is by Robin McKinley, one of my favorite fantasy authors. Plus I've just finished a couple of books about parasites, and if vampires existed I suppose they could be classified as parasites on humanity--resembling gigantic bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) or kissing bugs (Triatoma protracta) in regards to their unclean habits. Even though McKinley presents the idea of human-vampire sexuality as well as any author who has tackled this subject, I still can't get the idea of gigantic blood-sucking insects out of my mind.
Human Leeches are not a sexual turn-on.
Even if you agree with me about vampires, you should still read "Sunshine" for its feisty heroine, and for Charlie's Coffeehouse--the bakery of every sugar-holic's dreams. As I was reading this book, I had to fight off an overwhelming urge to bake up a pan of cinnamon buns and gorge on them. Of course, Sunshine (Ignore the name. This heroine is NOT Pollyanna.) doesn't get fat because she has to get up at 4 A.M. to bake all of those Cinnamon Rolls as Big as Your Head. Not to mention walnut sticky buns, pear gingerbread, honey cake, and assorted gooey deaths-by-chocolate.
(At least I now know how the vampire felt when one of those toothsome young Hammer Films virgins leaned out of her bedroom window, clad (if that's the right word) in lacy décolleté.)
The hero, Con, is a little harder to like, especially when the reader first meets him, deep in the shadows of a ruined mansion. It appeared as though Sunshine was going to suffer a fate worse than death (a lot worse than death) at his hands, before she could even make it back to the bakery to start the dough rising.
In fact, Part I (the first 86 pages) of this book is absolutely riveting--the darkest, most terrifying fantasy sequence I've read for a long time, right up there with some of the best work by Neil Gaiman or Garth Nix.
The rest of this novel does slow down a bit, the better to develop the main characters and their sometimes prickly relationships. We also need time to learn the geography and mores of Sunshine's dark, post-apocalyptic world, where Evil is on track to defeat Good within the next century. It won't be pretty, unless you savor the color and taste of blood.
I'm positive this fantasy is going to have a sequel just because of the multiple loose plot-ends that Robin McKinley dangles before her readers, not to mention demons, ghouls, the goddess of pain (whose side is she on, anyway?), a certain unrequited love affair, and hints about Sunshine's sorcerous family connections.
The author needn't have worried about my interest in a sequel. I was hooked on the pumpkin muffins way back in Part I.
Book Review: Boring
Summary: 1 Stars
I am a big Anita Blake fan. When this book was mentioned as being in the same league with Anita, I gave it a try, hoping to find another heroine who could stand up toe to toe with the big boys and come out a clear winner.
Instead I found a story so buried in prose and deviations from the story line that I had to force myself after Part One to continue to read the story, hoping there was some good to come out of it. Instead, I found a story so boring and so convoluted with unnecessary backtracking that I found I could skip pages and not miss a beat on the main story line.
The final epic battle is so vague and muddied up that I'm still not clear on what happened. It was like trying to watch a war movie on TV through a fogged up shower door, you got a sense of what was happening but nothing clear or definite ever emerged.
If you are an Anita Blake fan, don't bother with this book.
Book Review: Boring, Slow Read
Summary: 2 Stars
It was okay but for me it had way too much detail. I was so confused sometimes about what sunshine was talking about or who was talking for that matter. Also, I didn't finish the book. That is very unusual for me because I always finish the book I am reading unless it is just not interesting. I would have to say this book just wasn't holding my interest. I am sure this author is awesome but this book was nothing like I expected. It was too slow and not very exciting. For a very good vampire read, try Charlaine Harris's series. Those books are awesome. I can't wait until the next one comes out.Book Review: Burn the Money
Summary: 1 Stars
This was my first crack at a Robin McKinley novel, so I'm a virgin here. I'd heard all the hype about the writer and how she's the second coming of YA Christ, so I was expecting major, smooth fiction.This book is basically Robin McKinley trying to cash in on Laurell K. Hamilton by cloning Anita Blake but doing so in a nice, church lady semi-YA format. She fumbles like a fifteen year old at his first drive-thru and most of the time, she loses what grip she has on the story.
I can tell you on what page she starts fumbling: twelve, when she begins an onerous infodump about her alternate universe Earth, where vamps and all kinds of nasties are real and there's even been a war with them. Pay attention, because the baddies are whisked on and off so fast you'll miss them if you blink. As for her universe, no follow-through. You could call it Boring Vamp Universe and By God you're going to hear every detail of anything but the good stuff in it. Huge mistake and she repeats it throughout the book.
The premise: Sunshine is a baker with a lousy job, a quirky family, and (of course) a latent talent. She gets caught by a group of scary vamps who chain her in an abandoned house within arm's reach of an uber-scary, starved vampire (also held hostage) and leave her there to be kibble and bits. Sounds great, right? How could you screw this up? Let Robin McKinley write the book, that's how.
Sunshine is the worst kind of Hamilton imitator, because McKinley is afraid of everything: violence, gore, sex, and her own much-lauded talent. So she avoids them as much as possible, and as a result the prose drags, the characters are laughably 2-D and the action is slower than a tortoise with a hangover. Of particular offense, the (count 'em) two possible sex scenes are so ruined by the author that I have vowed never to waste another buck on this uptight woman.
Bend the Reads recommends you burn the $23.95 it would cost to buy this book, because that's the only way you'll get anything out of it.