vampires, good, evil, fantasy, families, LRC, KS4 ( )

Sunshine is not really a vampire story - it is a Robin McKinley story about a young woman with magic who has to fight vampires. It is told in first person by the woman, Rae Seddon, aka Sunshine, but the voice is, to me, unmistakably McKinley's. This isn't so much a criticism as an observation. All this means that if you like McKinley's voice, I think you'll like this book. But maybe not. Because, I'll be honest, there's stuff to love in it, but there are some really clunky moments that grated on my nerves. There's good and bad in this book and some readers will like it a lot, and some will be less impressed. Me? I'm somewhere in the middle.

http://archthinking.blogspot.com/2009... ( )

Surprised (perhaps because I thought I was 'over' vampires for a while) to find that I ‘very much liked’ or even possibly ‘loved’ this story. I enjoyed the slower pace of this story and the level of detail with which it was told. I felt I got a real sense of who the main characters were and what their lives were like (especially Sunshine, and her job as a baker in a café), and I got to watch her process the experiences she was going through, rather than rush from one to the other for the sake of an overly convoluted plot!!

Sunshine was a likeable main character who really grew on me, and it was good (from a writing point of view) to see that the trauma she goes though has real consequences, and isn't just shrugged off with the next exciting action sequence. ( )

Robin McKinley is a master at balancing detail with broad plot strokes, creating a world that is achingly familiar yet entirely foreign, like a marvelously complete and exciting dream. Sunshine is a character that readers will want to be; who wouldn’t want to be the creator of such marvelous things as the Caramel Cataclysm and Killer Zebras, have a kindly tattooed biker boyfriend, and draw strength from the sun? The world and the characters are the strength of this book.
This is not to say the plot is weak. The plot is largely internal; it primarily deals with Sunshine’s struggle to define herself as her place in the world changes and the buried secrets of her heritage surface. There is a villain and there are characters who may be villains, and these details intertwine with McKinley’s unfolding description of the world. The climax, in which Sunshine and Con defeat Con’s vampire enemy, a bad vampire in a world where there is only one possibly good vampire, has more to do with Sunshine dealing with her own internal struggle than with any kung fu moves or general thrilling actions. McKinley’s strength is creating an interesting world and characters, rather than weaving a tight-knit story. The sum of Sunshine seems to leave the door open for a sequel, and readers used to paranormal series may be frustrated by the loose ends and possibilities that remain after the book is finished. However, other readers may enjoy that there is such fertile fodder for further imagining. Sunshine will occupy the mind long after it has been set down. ( )

I stumbled over this last year while traveling. I have greatly enjoyed everything else by this author that I have read, though I have not made the effort to collect and read them all. This book is vastly different from her previous works, which are mostly light fantasy including reworking various folktales, including Robin Hood (Outlaws of Sherwood), Beauty and the Beast (Beauty and Rose Daughter), Sleeping Beauty (Spindle's End), and the more obscure Deerskin that tackles incest. She also has young adult books with female protagonists set in her imaginary land of Daria: The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, both favorites of mine. All of these have charm and some lyrical style, though not of the caliber of Patricia McKillip.

It was hard for me to believe that Sunshine was written by the same author. It's another gritty, urban, modern fantasy that is the mode these days. It's still essentially another young adult book, since the heroine is a high school graduate who works in the family restaurant/coffee shop as the head baker. I think she's still a teenager, or perhaps very early twenties. This one is told in the first person, unlike her earlier books that I recall. The heroine has an engaging narrative voice. And since I am something of a baker myself, I certainly can relate to our heroine and find her discourses on culinary creations and such things as leavening agents interesting.

The story has a very interesting premise in the Voodoo Wars--apparently an attempt by vampires to take over the world. As a result, a great many people and even cities died or disappeared or turned into something bad. A special branch of law enforcement was created, along with legislation making it illegal to be a vampire and requiring everyone with any nonhuman (therefore, by definition demon) characteristics or magic abilities to register in a national database. That's all background material, and many details and implications remain unexplained.

The heroine gets kidnapped by a band of vampires and lives to tell the tale, and moreover goes on to defeat the evil vampires with the help of a not quite so evil vampire who goes on the be her pointy-toothed friend by the end of the book. I understand the necessity of "he's not like other vampires" device--if he were like other vampires, the narrator would already be dead and there'd be no story--but it's still annoying. The closing scene is the two of them skipping off into the night to play before she has to start her 4 a.m. cinnamon roll shift. How very saccharine.

I was also annoyed by the pages and pages of internal exposition as the narrator agonizes over "I can't believe I'm not trying to kill this vampire, since he's a vampire," and "I can't believe I am still stuck in this nightmare involving vampires, and I'm sure to die," and "OMG I might be a ticking time bomb," and "I can't believe I did that, no one's ever done that." A certain amount of it is necessary and believable, but not going on for paragraphs and paragraphs on this page and that page, repeat.

But those are my only gripes. It's an interesting story, and interesting backstory, interesting characters, interesting magical system, generally good dialogue. I look forward to the sequel, clearly there's a lot more story to tell. Certainly this is a vibrant new direction for Robin McKinley. ( )