Sunshine

A few years back, Neil Gaiman wrote a blog post suggesting a new book-sharing tradition, calling it 'All Hallow's Read'. A friend and I adopted it immediately afterwards, and so every October we swap some of our favorite spooky books.

This is the book I sent out this year, one of my favorite vampire novels... and I couldn't resist reading through it a second time to see if it lived up to my remembered hype. I was a bit worried during the first arc (which had the potential of being handled amazingly poorly)— but overall I'd have to say yes, yes it does.

I've long viewed Sunshine as an answer to Twilight, even though it was actually published a year before that much maligned bit of teen fiction hit the scene. Confession time: I actually enjoyed reading Twilight— it's over-dramatic and silly, completely fails to approach anything like a healthy relationship, and attaches tons of emotional weight to signifiers that actually mean very little— all things that jibe well with what I experienced as a teenager.

Sunshine, on the other hand, feels emotionally real in a lot of the areas modern paranormal romance feels fake— here we're presented a world where vampires slake their cruel hunger on mortals and humanity as a whole suffers for it, where scary things happen to our heroine and emotional trauma results, and the companionship that eventually develops feels natural.

There's a lot of things I feel this book does right, but I think that last point hits on the key one: the relationships between characters feel natural. Maybe comparing this book to paranormal romances is unfair, because romantic relationships really aren't the focus of this story— it's more about how the main character relates to herself, her friends, family, and past. The end result of exploring those relationships is a very vivid, strongly voiced character that I'm quite happy to have revisited.

And of course there's also vampires, magic, vows of undying loyalty, a visceral final battle, and the promise of a hard-won future. All excellent additions.

So yeah. I'm going to stay up tonight and tomorrow reading The Excorcist, which my friend sent me as her part of our book swap. I'm looking forward to being scared witless, but I hope that Sunshine finds a place in your heart like it's found in mine (nestled somewhere in the gristle between aorta and left ventricle).

Happy Halloween! ( )

Vampires, were-chickins, delectable deserts, oh my! ( )

Always a good read. ( )

Overall I really loved this book and the main character, Sunshine, however I found McKinley to be long winded in the internal dialogue department at times, and I kept losing focus on what I was reading. The story line itself was wonderful and anyone who enjoyed Anne Rice's vampire novels would probably love this!

At some point in the past I read Sunshine. And I loved it. I don't remember when I read it, I didn't review it on the blog or if I did it got lost in one of my moves along the way. I think it was the first time I remember reading Robin McKinley ((although it turned out that she was actually the author of one of my favourite books when I rediscovered The Hero and the Crown )) .
So when Renay & Ana discussed Sunshine on Fangirl Happy Hour I couldn't resist picking it up again and enjoying a reread. ((I think it is a reread of a reread if I'm being totally honest))
And I loved it again. It's such a great book.
I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again at some point, but I'm very much a character driven reader. If I love, or enjoy, or otherwise appreciate a character I'll forgive a lot in a book, and Sunshine is very much a character focused book. It is a character study in many ways. There is a plot, and awesome intricate but subtle world-building, but mainly it is the main character, Sunshine, and how she deals with her world. And she is such a real, grounded character. I loved her.

I thought her relationships with the people around her were just so believable and understandable. In short, this is a wonderful book that you should go read, and it has meant that I can never see a Robin McKinley book without thinking "ooohhh much read that".
The one thing about the book that's a bit hmmm, is the cover of my copy. It doesn't really shout "pick me" when you see it on the shelf. Although I do think it has a southern gothic sort of feel to it, so maybe it fits? ( )