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Title: Sunshine by Robin McKinley ISBN: 0425191788 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.76
Rating: 4
Summary: A welcome change for McKinley
Comment: It seems as if almost everyone who is a McKinley fan hates this book. Maybe everyone is expecting more characters like Aerin or Harry from her Damar series, or the flowery prose in her fairy tale retellings. Frankly, I'm happy to find neither of these in "Sunshine." Don't get me wrong, I love McKinley. I think she's a fabulous writer who creates great characters and great settings. Many people have argued that "Sunshine" has neither. I feel it has both, but in a manner completely different that what we're used to from the author.
This book grabbed my attention as soon as I saw it. McKinley + vampires = pure heaven for me, and so I snatched it right up, not caring what it might be about. I was completely shocked to find a book set in a "normal" setting. The lead character, Rae, makes no pretense of being special; right from the start she informs the readers that she barely graduated high school, and she has no passion in life for anything besides baking. Her boyfriend is more of an afterthought in her daily life, and she has no career aspirations. I actually enjoyed reading a story where the lead character wasn't anyone special. In fact, when Rae finds out she has powers, she actively denies trying to use them if she doesn't have to simply because she enjoys her normal, ordinary life. For me, it was much easier to relate to a character just floundering through life, going day to day rather than living on a grand, epic scale.
I found the combination of everyday life and the unexplained supernatural fascinating. Many things aren't explained thoroughly, but I enjoyed this treatment as it a) leaves room for sequels (which I'd like to see) and b) kept me more interested in reading the whole way through. I don't mind the "X-Files" tone of the SOF, and I don't mind the fact that the heroine is by all means NOT a hero. And honestly, what I REALLY enjoyed was the significant lack of the overwraught prose McKinley sometimes brings to her books. (I felt the language in "Rose Daughter" bogged down the story so much that it took me over a year to read it completely.)
If you're looking for the same epic fantasies that McKinley has crafted in books prior to "Sunshine," then this isn't the book for you. But if you're looking for something different, and if you're looking for a protagonist who acts more like a human rather than a hero, and if you're looking for a story with a dark, creepy underbelly, then this very well may be right up your alley.
Rating: 4
Summary: What a wonderful book.
Comment: SUNSHINE is one of the most interesting books I've read this year. I've never read McKinley before, so I brought no preconceptions to the experience. Though I would have changed a couple of things about SUNSHINE (the too-sudden revelation that Rae's world is not our world, the competely absentee but all-too-often discussed mother), I thought the premise and writing were completely engaging. I'd love to read another book about these characters.
Rating: 5
Summary: Stop whining people
Comment: I'm astounded by the whining about this book. People don't like the heroine, they consider the book rambling and can't cope with an ending that doesn't tie up every possible loose end. Perhaps you should all go read Star Trek novels where there'll be no surprises for you and everything will be nicely solved at the end.
What I loved about this book is that McKinley takes on the hoary cliche of human/vampire encounter and made it fresh and interesting. I loved the everyday tied into the fantastic. Rae is both extraordinary *and* ordinary at the same time and having a hell of a time adjusting. I loved the importance of the cinnamon buns in her life and spent a great deal of my reading time (I read it in one night, unable to put it down) craving really good baked goods. I loved that it is and isn't a romance. I loved that a bigger world emerged between the lines of this novel. I loved that I closed the book satisfied and wanting more. Sequels would be fabulous but not getting them won't kill me either.
I've never read McKinley before but I'll be looking out for her books now.
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Title: Trickster's Choice (Daughter of the Lioness Book 1) by Tamora Pierce ISBN: 0375814663 Publisher: Random House (Juv) Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Paladin of Souls: A Novel by Lois McMaster Bujold ISBN: 0380979020 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Club Dead by Charlaine Harris ISBN: 0441010512 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: 29 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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Title: In the Forests of Serre by Patricia A. McKillip ISBN: 0441010113 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country by Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede ISBN: 0152046151 Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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