Thursday, August 6, 2009

Sunshine-Robin McKinley

I picked this book because it's Robin McKinley, and she's supposed to be an awesome writer. I've read Deerskin and Spindle's End by her, and generally liked them, even if I thought Deerskin's ending was very strange. This book is set in our world, but there are added dangers, like the ever prevalent vampires in novels today. It's the story of Sunshine, a baker at a coffeehouse, and a strange vampire she happens to befriend.
At first the book seemed promising. The colloquial style of the writing allows for more of a connection to the narrator, Sunshine. But while it starts out well, I found the book to get increasingly slower and not enjoyable to read. Mere seconds of events take pages to occur because Sunshine stops to discuss something else to the reader. While the information is probably necessary, the info dumps make a reader want to skim rather than fully read. And one of the strangest things I found about this book was the randomly inserted incredibly graphic almost sex scene. I was not expecting that. It made no sense to happen. I didn’t pick up this book intending to be scarred. If I had wanted to read something that graphic, I could have picked up a harlequin book. So this book disappointed me.* I think it could have been better. One star, for starting off well and ending with a crash.

*This review is only my opinion. If you read this book and liked it, then that’s great. But it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally agree with your review. :) I do, however, completely adore some of Robin McKinley's books. Notably, "The Blue Sword" and "Spindle's End" and "Beauty."

clairedelune said...

Yeah I really liked Spindle's End, so I was surprised at this book. I'm still planning on reading Beauty