robin mckinley's sunshine
May. 4th, 2009 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardSomedays I forget just how fast I read.
I took a break from the world and read Robin McKinley's Sunshine in probably just under four hours. It's about 400 pages, so about a hundred pages an hour, though I think I actually do more. Look, I wasn't timing myself; I can tell you that at top reading speed I went through OotP in six hours. In case anyone was wondering.
I'm still largely turned off vampire books -- the Twilight and Sookie Stackhouse books have a lot to pay for -- but I liked Sunshine. I liked the WORLD. Screw the vampires, I want to hear about the demons. But you know me, I'm a big fan of worldbuilding.
Sunshine takes place in what can probably be considered vaguely post-apocalyptic America -- probably America, anyway, but McKinley is good about not saying exactly where. It is implied to be America. Up until the one teetiny reference to Michigan and Ontario and...Wisconsin? I don't remember -- I was about ninety percent certain that the book took place in a Kings-like world, one like ours, but not. Well, the world of Sunshine is a world of cars and coffeehouses and cinnamon rolls, but it's also one of magic, where it's expected to have wards stamped into the wheels of your car and wrapped around your house, and where there are things in the dark you don't want to know about. Where anyone can be partblood -- part demon, part human -- and there are families of magic-handlers.
The main character, Rae Seddon, a.k.a. Sunshine, is lovely in her ordinariness. She's just a baker, the Cinnamon Roll Queen, who falls into a spot of bad luck and finds that she's more than just a baker -- although she is, by nature, a feeder, which I kind of love; she loves cooking and feeding people and it's just so ordinary. She's a vegetarian, which is something else I kind of love. How often is the daring heroine a vegetarian? She has a family and friends and a job she loves and a boyfriend, and then there are vampires.
And the vampires aren't human. These aren't your Charlaine Harris vampires or your Stephanie Meyer vampires or even your Joss Whedon vampires; these vamps can't pass as human. I kind of love that fact.
I'm -- not fond of the ending, I'm not sure why. I like the majority of the book, but the ending makes me take a step back and go, wait, what? I think part of my problem with the ending is that there's no resolution -- I mean, there is to some extent, but it falls too far into the, "oh, the pretty human girl and the vampire have to go be together in the dark for the few hours they have left!" cliche, and I would have liked to see Sunshine go back to the coffeehouse and her friends and family, to look into the dark and be fucking grateful she isn't a part of it (even though she is, a little bit), that she's chosen not to be a part of it. Sure, the trip into the dark with the vampire was great and all, but she's happy to be back here in the bakery with her cinnamon rolls and perfectly ordinary Charlie and Mel-who-may-not-be.
And what the hell is up with the Blaise family, anyway? That I'm curious about -- I just love the worldbuilding here. I feel like there were a lot of things that were set up in this book that were criminally underutilized -- Mel and the SOF guys (be still my beating heart! look, I have certain kinks in fiction, what can I say) being the relevant point, but then again, what about that vision Sunshine had, of Mrs. Bialosky and Maud and Mel? THAT I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT. You do not just drop things like that on us and then forget about it, Robin McKinley!
Still, I kind of feel like the book could have been written without the vampires and with something else in place, but that's probably just the fact I kind of despise vampire stories now. (Hey, I love Buffy as much as the next girl -- okay, the next girl is my roommate, whohas had (she's in the process of packing up) a signed Buffy poster up on the wall -- but at this point anything with vampires makes me twitch hard.)
So yes. A definite rec on Sunshine. Now perhaps I should consider that studying thing...despite the fact that I now want to bake something fierce.
I took a break from the world and read Robin McKinley's Sunshine in probably just under four hours. It's about 400 pages, so about a hundred pages an hour, though I think I actually do more. Look, I wasn't timing myself; I can tell you that at top reading speed I went through OotP in six hours. In case anyone was wondering.
I'm still largely turned off vampire books -- the Twilight and Sookie Stackhouse books have a lot to pay for -- but I liked Sunshine. I liked the WORLD. Screw the vampires, I want to hear about the demons. But you know me, I'm a big fan of worldbuilding.
Sunshine takes place in what can probably be considered vaguely post-apocalyptic America -- probably America, anyway, but McKinley is good about not saying exactly where. It is implied to be America. Up until the one teetiny reference to Michigan and Ontario and...Wisconsin? I don't remember -- I was about ninety percent certain that the book took place in a Kings-like world, one like ours, but not. Well, the world of Sunshine is a world of cars and coffeehouses and cinnamon rolls, but it's also one of magic, where it's expected to have wards stamped into the wheels of your car and wrapped around your house, and where there are things in the dark you don't want to know about. Where anyone can be partblood -- part demon, part human -- and there are families of magic-handlers.
The main character, Rae Seddon, a.k.a. Sunshine, is lovely in her ordinariness. She's just a baker, the Cinnamon Roll Queen, who falls into a spot of bad luck and finds that she's more than just a baker -- although she is, by nature, a feeder, which I kind of love; she loves cooking and feeding people and it's just so ordinary. She's a vegetarian, which is something else I kind of love. How often is the daring heroine a vegetarian? She has a family and friends and a job she loves and a boyfriend, and then there are vampires.
And the vampires aren't human. These aren't your Charlaine Harris vampires or your Stephanie Meyer vampires or even your Joss Whedon vampires; these vamps can't pass as human. I kind of love that fact.
I'm -- not fond of the ending, I'm not sure why. I like the majority of the book, but the ending makes me take a step back and go, wait, what? I think part of my problem with the ending is that there's no resolution -- I mean, there is to some extent, but it falls too far into the, "oh, the pretty human girl and the vampire have to go be together in the dark for the few hours they have left!" cliche, and I would have liked to see Sunshine go back to the coffeehouse and her friends and family, to look into the dark and be fucking grateful she isn't a part of it (even though she is, a little bit), that she's chosen not to be a part of it. Sure, the trip into the dark with the vampire was great and all, but she's happy to be back here in the bakery with her cinnamon rolls and perfectly ordinary Charlie and Mel-who-may-not-be.
And what the hell is up with the Blaise family, anyway? That I'm curious about -- I just love the worldbuilding here. I feel like there were a lot of things that were set up in this book that were criminally underutilized -- Mel and the SOF guys (be still my beating heart! look, I have certain kinks in fiction, what can I say) being the relevant point, but then again, what about that vision Sunshine had, of Mrs. Bialosky and Maud and Mel? THAT I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT. You do not just drop things like that on us and then forget about it, Robin McKinley!
Still, I kind of feel like the book could have been written without the vampires and with something else in place, but that's probably just the fact I kind of despise vampire stories now. (Hey, I love Buffy as much as the next girl -- okay, the next girl is my roommate, who
So yes. A definite rec on Sunshine. Now perhaps I should consider that studying thing...despite the fact that I now want to bake something fierce.