Sunshine Paperback – April 29, 2010

After reading this book for the fourth time, it is still my favorite vampire tale. It is set in a complicated world where magic, ghouls of all types, and humans ( and 'part-bloods) coexist uncomfortably. This story of the uncomfortable relationship twixt an unusual young woman and an unusual vampire will draw you into the tumultuous mess of fear, affection, and mortal danger. With well defined characters and engaging prose, this novel will satisfy almost all readers of vampire fantasy.

Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mystery series is the only book series that I have reread multiple times. I think the books appealed to me so much because Ms. Harris was able to take a very relatable young woman, living an unremarkable life in a backwater little town in northern Louisiana, and make her remarkable. Ms. Harris ' straight forward writing style and contemporary settings and language made it easy for me to believe in Sookie and her world.On their face, the SVM books are simple but entertaining. However, looking much deeper, the themes of marginalization and acceptance become apparent. Critics and some readers may have panned the series, but I loved it. So, perhaps you'll understand why I was so glad to read Ms. Harris' recommendation of Sunshine which she described on her Facebook page as a "pretty much perfect vampire story." I wouldn't say that I'm in 100% agreement with Ms. Harris' assessment of Sunshine, but I did find it enjoyable.While reading, I thought the events in Sunshine might be what happened if the Witch War in Harris' Dead to the World had escalated and ALL of the Supernaturals had come out of the closet, so to speak. New Arcadia, the setting for Sunshine, is home to every type and stripe of Supernatural that came to be known after the devastating Voodoo Wars. They are referred to as the Other and of course, the Other needs to be monitored and controlled, so we have the Special Other Forces known as SOF. Several of Rae's friends are part of SOF. Humans prevailed in the Voodoo Wars, but they are wary survivors. Charms, wards and other magic are a common part of day-to-day life to protect the human population from the Others.Rae (Sunshine) Seddons is our Sookie in the post Voodoo Wars world of New Arcadia. She works as a baker in her stepfather's coffee shop and is known for her killer cinnamon rolls and other baked goods. Merlotte's was the watering hole of Bon Temps, Charlie's Coffeehouse holds that honor located in the Old Town of New Arcadia. Rae is a good deal more cynical than Sookie was in the beginning of her supernatural journey but, like Sookie, she has friends, family and an occupation that she likes and wants to keep. Also like Sookie, she is a lover of the sunshine and draws both strength and peace from it which is what gives rise to her nickname, Sunshine. As in Ms. Harris' novels, there is frequent, startling, laugh-out-loud gallows humor that crops up at the most unexpected and often dire times. Both Rae and Sunshine have u unique "abilities," but more importantly, both have the ability to face near paralyzingly fear and uncertainty with fatalistic resolve.The blood suckers in Rae's world are not the suave, devastatingly handsome Vampires of Bon Temps and Shreveport like the 180 year old Bill Compton or the 1,000 year old Viking vampire, Eric Northman. Sunshine's vampires are menacing, really dead looking, feared and not particularly well dressed. To quote the SOF, 'the only good vampire is a staked, beheaded, and burned vampire.' The exception is Constantine, Con for short, who Rae manages to save from a rival Vampire gang. He would still be described physically the same way, but has chosen "to exist differently" than Bo (Beauregard) who is the primary antagonist in this novel. Friendship and a little more develop between Sunshine and Con as the story goes on.As I said, this vampire novel was a little less than perfect for me. The stream-of-consciousness style of writing, the sparse use of dialog and the large number of characters made reading Sunshine a challenge. I've never been a big fan of s-o-c style writing and found it particularly difficult in the early part of the novel. I'm a pretty adept reader, but a page and a half between a question posed by one character and the answer by another really challenged my patience from time to time. I occasionally had to backtrack to maintain the flow of the story. I also had issues with the language used to describe commonplace items: dollars are called blinks, computers are called comboxes, and so on. This author's never really explained choice for the change in language really didn't do much to enhance the story and made it less relatable for me. That said, Rae and her coterie of friends and family grew on me. Even though the main storyline wrapped up satisfactorily, there's plenty left between Rae and Con to produce a terrific series.

I just love this book to pieces (which makes reviewing it incredibly hard). But not everybody will love it as much as I did; try the sample, and you'll know.Sunshine is an urban fantasy tale set in an alternate U.S. and narrated by a 25-year-old baker named Rae Seddon (nicknamed Sunshine). One night she gets kidnapped by vampires. And.... the blurb doesn't give away any more than that, so I won't, either.What I love about this book:I love Sunshine, as a character. She feels like a real, three-dimensional person with an actual life. I love that we get a full picture of her life, even the not-strictly-plot-relevant parts like her job in her family's coffeeshop and reading vampire novels and her relationship with her landlady, and that it all manages to be interesting anyway. I love that she responds to events in a realistic, human way, which makes the urban-fantasy world feel more real than most. I love her ramblings and sense of humor.I love Sunshine's voice. McKinley is a fantastic writer, and her lovely, fluid prose just pulls me right in every time. You might think an author known for her young adult fairy-tale retellings might have a hard time writing writing an adult, modern voice, complete with slang and frank discussions of sex, but it totally works. I love the conversational tone and the way she tells the story as if to someone from her world and who already knows the basic facts about it.I love the weird, evolving relationship between Sunshine and the vampire, Con. McKinley's vampires are fairly awful creatures and she doesn't let you lose sight of that--even at their best, they look disgusting, they smell bad, they don't understand human emotional needs--but in spite of (or because of?) that, the two main characters have a complex, emotionally charged relationship that's tons of fun to read about.Why 4.5 stars, rather than 5:Sometimes Sunshine's ramblings go on a little too long, making the plot sag a bit in the middle. Fortunately, though, things pick up again toward the end--I've read 5 or 6 McKinley books and this is by far the best climax (and aftermath) that I've seen in any of them. (It seems like she has trouble with climaxes--often they're rushed, or giant deus ex machinas, or just rather boring, but this one has none of those problems.)All the unanswered questions. Some you wouldn't always expect to be answered, because life goes on and isn't always tied up in a neat little bow; some will leave you thinking you must have missed something. You didn't.Common misconceptions about this book (for some reason they are many):"It's YA": No, it's not. McKinley mostly writes young adult books, but this is not among them."It's horror": It's urban fantasy. "Horror," to me, is stuff you read to scare yourself. I avoid horror because I don't need to add fear to my life, and I almost avoided this book for that reason. And okay, there are a couple viscerally horrifying scenes, but you're not likely to get an adrenaline rush beyond what you get from reading a good book."It's not a vampire romance": It is and it isn't. Not exactly romance novel material, and yet....In the end, I know this is far from a perfect book, but I absolutely loved it. For days after finishing, I couldn't read anything else and kept going back to re-read bits of this one instead. So it gets rounded up to 5 stars for being one of the most enjoyable books I've read in months.

I took this book out from the library more than once, and loved it every time I read it. I was overjoyed to see it come up on sale, and immediately snapped it up. My only wish is that there were more with these characters and in this world.

Regalo per mia figlia che ha gradito molto.

O livro brilha! Haha . Não é versão pocket, foi do jeito que eu esperava. Acho essa edição melhor que aquela com a moça algemada.

The author tends to deviate away from the storylline frequently and lot of gibberish is also used.Rather than keeping you glued to the storyline it may add a booster to your sleeping pills(Ofcourse if u atall need some).Recommended only for people who have trouble sleeping and require a sleeping pill called "SUNSHINE".

-"Sunshine" est l'archétype du livre qu'on adore ou que l'on déteste. Sa forme est si audacieuse, si personnelle qu'elle ne pourra manquer d'irriter les lecteurs qui ne tomberont pas sous son charme...Le récit est écrit comme un journal intime, avec un abandon et un manque de complexe flagrants. L'auteur (et donc le personnage principal, Sunshine - le roman est écrit à la première personne du singulier) parle de ce qu'elle veut, de ce qu'elle aime, de qui elle aime et de tout ce qui lui passe par la tête à tout moment. Le récit est ainsi nourri d'invraisemblables, sempiternelles, très longues ET (à mes yeux) passionnantes digressions.Le lecteur est ainsi longuement entretenu de la passion de la jeune fille pour son métier de pâtissière dans un petit restaurant familial, et apprend les choses nécessaires à la compréhension du monde à la louche, sans ordre particulier - mais sans aucune frustration non plus.Curieusement "Sunshine", qui est une histoire intime, douce, personnelle, malicieuse, lente, fascinante et quotidienne, est aussi une histoire de vampires. Ou plutôt l'histoire d'un vampire et d'une humaine, ou plutôt d'un vampire et d'une jeune femme pas tout à fait humaine - quoiqu'elle en ait décidé, dans un monde décalé très travaillé et cohérent.Par bonheur l'auteur ne sombre jamais dans aucun des clichés de la bitlit ou de la romance, conservant une authenticité parfaite.Les pages se suivent avec leur rythme étonnant en "vagues", toujours passionnantes et émouvantes. Je crois que j'aurais pu continuer à lire encore des pages, des pages et des pages...