Sunshine

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? ( )

Rae “Sunshine” Seddon is a woman who works at a small family-owned coffeeshop and bakes extraordinary desserts. She also happens to be the daughter of a powerful vampire hunter and the granddaughter of a transmuter. And she lives in a town which is on the outskirts of a region that is thoroughly ruled by vampires.

But none of this becomes apparent until the day she is captured by a band of vampire soldiers looking for someone to feed to their captive, a strangely humane creature called Con. After a horrifying day spent chained in an old mansion and attempting to stay in the sunlight as long as possible, she and Con come to a tenuous agreement to escape.

Sunshine never expects to see him again, but the lingering effects of the contact with the vampires and the wounds inflicted on her have lasting impacts, and eventually Con returns to repay his debt.

Darker and far more well-written than many of the faddish vampire novels available today, this particular work still has a few hiccups, including the author’s fixation on mentioning Sunshine’s propensity for baked goods. The ending is a bit rushed and ambiguous, as in many of McKinley’s works. But for readers looking for something a little more intense than the latest “Twilight” spin-off, this is an excellent suggestion. ( )

I gave this 4 hours (out of 15) before I gave up. I'm not really super into vampire/werewolf novels and not usually into novels with young female protagonists AND I'm not really into books set in the modern world, so I knew it probably wouldn't work for me. The world sounded pretty interesting with a host of undead and lycanthropes and I like the sound of "The Voodoo Wars", but nothing really happened. The first 25% of the book was just her stuck in a room with a vampire and a bunch of boring mundane details about her life at the bakery. It just seemed that unless this was a 2000 page novel it was never going to get to the exciting part. ( )

Amazon lists Sunshine as a Young Adult novel. However, this fifty-five year old male loved it. ( )