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Robin McKinley
SUNSHINE
book cover



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Who recommends:
Who discommends: Laurie

It took me months to finish this book! I kept picking it up and putting it down for other books that interested me. The beginning reminded me a lot of Nancy Baker's KISS OF THE VAMPIRE, where a young woman is abducted and jailed with a vampire. This time it's a young woman who makes her living cooking cinnamon rolls (yum, I think I could live with that job) in a family run coffee shop. She has a close group of friends and a likable boyfriend and seems very content with the way her life is going until she's abducted by vampires and chained up with only a hungry, dying vampire for a companion. The writing is different from McKinley's usually lyrical style (DEERSKIN, BEAUTY). The tone is more modern both in slang and subject matter, and I enjoyed it very much in the beginning despite stumbling over some of the narrative.

As the story progresses, and our heroine "Sunshine" has plenty of time to reflect on her past, we learn she possesses some inherited magical power that increases when she's in full sunlight. In this world vampires and "Other" creatures are commonplace. Though the beginning grabbed me, I'm sorry to say I can't say the same about the rest of the book. Midway through it became a real struggle to finish and I ended up doing some major skimming to get to the end and ended up feeling "eh" about the whole thing. I didn't find it witty or all that interesting in the end.--Laurie (6 Sep 05)



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