Sunshine by Robin McKinley

I got this book as an unexpected gift, from a friend of mine. She started reading it, only to find that the author’s writing style was driving her insane. Frustrated beyond belief, she skipped to the end, and handed to book to me, wondering what I would think of it. Not the most positive way to be introduced to an author whose work was new to me, I admit. My friend told me the book had vampires in it, knowing that this would catch my attention. I do read a lot of books that include vampires. So, I decided to give it a read.

I must admit, I have mixed feelings about this book. The author has a unique writing style that I, like my friend, found to be confusing. It’s kind of hard to explain without directly plagiarizing large sections of the book here. McKinley’s main character, a woman nicknamed “Sunshine”, tends to start a thought, and then go off on tangents that lead in several different directions. By the time she returns to the first thought again, I was lost. I also had a difficult time keeping the many characters introduced in the first few chapters straight. Their descriptions were mere pencil sketches, and there were so darn many of them. Some of McKinley’s sentences use the same word twice, one immediately followed by the other. After tripping over several of them, and having to go back and attempt to sort out the meaning, I found myself getting very frustrated. Nothing about this book can be described as “an easy read”!

What kept me from just giving up on this book was what I could make out of the story line. The universe this story exists in fascinated me. Magic exists, and is not only well accepted, but depended upon. People make money by selling charms of protection, and everyone has several of these magic protections in their homes, embedded in their cars, and, often, tattooed on their bodies as well. They need all this protection from “The Others” : demons, incubuses, vampires, were-beings, and things not yet defined. Vampires are especially hated, because they have taken over the world (especially the finances), and also because, well, they eat humans. Anyone suspected of having any magic or “other” in their blood is someone to be suspicious of. There is an entire police unit that keeps track of these people.
I found this interesting, and wanted to know more about how this all worked.

Nothing in this book is as it seems. Sunshine has a background that she barely remembers, and does not know the full meaning of. She gets kidnapped by a group of vampires, as a temptation for another vampire, whom they have also kidnapped. There is a complex story line involving vampire politics, which somewhat explain what was really going on at that moment. This event takes place early on in the story, so, as a reader, you know that Sunshine survives…. just not how, or as what. This was enough for me to want to read to the end of the book. Sunshine finds her world turned upside down, and ends up having to make some difficult choices. In the process, she discovers who she really is, and what she can do. I realize this description is a bit vague, but, so is the book, in parts.

Overall, if you really enjoy books about vampires, and magic, and all of that sort of thing, then you might want to venture through the tangled writing style, to read this book. The story hidden within is a good one, if you can stick with the book long enough to piece it out. I think most people, however, are going to find themselves as frustrated as my friend was with McKinley’s prose, and giving up on it as well.

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