Review: Sunshine by Robin McKinley
Series: Stand alone (there's no sequel as of yet, as Ms. McKinley explains here)
Genre: Young adult, dystopia, urban fantasy
Cover: I like it. The dark red fits the story very well. The re-issued cover (under the cut) is also good. Reminds me of Girl in the Arena, actually.
Rating: 4/5
Recommended for: People who kinda-sorta like recent vampire fics but wish there was maybe a darker story with an older heroine or vampires who don't sparkle
Going to read more by this author?: This is actually a pretty complicated question. I read The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword about two years ago and didn't really like them, but I really liked this. I think I'm going to go back and reread those two and add Beauty to my TBR list, just because this was that good.
Buy?: I believe so. It was very interesting, and the cover's good.
Review: Cut for length and slight spoilers
The premise is an interesting (and refreshing!) one. Sunshine is captured by vampires and chained in a room with a blood-thirsty vampire that really would like to drink her blood but abstains. They cooperate and manage to escape, but have to continue their alliance in order to survive and take down their original kidnapper.
Sunshine was a very interesting heroine. I was a little leery of her at the beginning, but she grew on me. She's very independent -- at times a little too much so, as she tells those around her very little of her struggles. I really enjoyed hearing the story from her perspective, though as always, the first-person POV comes with some problems. Much of the beginning is exposition, and it gets awfully long. Few of the characters are reasonably fleshed out because besides Constantine and a couple of their world's police officers, almost none of the characters have more than a line of dialogue.
The world building was very well done; I liked the haziness surrounding the mage war but its clearly seen influence on their world. Sunshine's magic was very interesting; I loved the description of her abilities and the part it played. I did get a little confused by all her separate "parts" -- the doe, the tree, and the vampire. I also liked how her interaction with vampires gave her some of their abilities, but she found them to be a curse more than a blessing. The vampires were terrifically done, no sparkly or tortured vampires in this. These inspire terror wherever they go and are very non-human. There's no vampire romance in this -- except for about 10 rather explicit seconds that left me utterly bewildered. I kept expecting to see an explanation, a follow-up, something. Never. It's just another of the loose plot threads that never get summed up.
The ending, IMO, is poorly done. Ms. McKinley says she likes loose endings because they're like life -- but books aren't real life. I prefer answers. And if you're like me, you probably won't like the ending. The main problem is resolved, but there's a huge number of unresolved plot points. I really would like to see a sequel, but that doesn't look very likely.
Anyway, I did enjoy this fresh take on the somewhat overdone vampire book. I liked following Sunshine on her adventures, and if she left a little to be desired as a narrator, I think I can forgive her in light of her otherwise interesting quirks.