Sunshine -- Robin McKinley

It took me two years to get around to reading this book.  Does that make me a bad fan?

I was a little scared.  It's a grown-up book, after all, which I'm not used to Robin McKinley writing.  The review at amazon.com were really, really mixed.  I was worried that I wouldn't like it.  Or that, worse, I would hate it.

Hello.  It's Robin McKinley.  And Neil Gaiman loved it.  Obviously, I shouldn't have worried.

Do not go into this book thinking that it will be anything like any of her other books.  (Okay, I haven't read Deerskin.  But I suspect that this isn't like that one, either). 

First of all, it's set in the present day: 

I liked living alone.  I liked the silence--and nothing moving but me.  I lived upstairs in a big old ex-farmhouse at the edge of a federal park, with my landlady on the ground floor.  When I'd gone round to look at the place the old lady--very tall, very straight, and a level stare that went right through you--had looked at me and said she didn't like renting to Young People (she said this like you might say Dog Vomit) because they kept bad hours and made noise.  I liked her immediately.  I explained humbly that indeed I did keep bad hours because I had to get up at four A.M. to make cinnamon rolls for Charlies Coffeehouse, whereupon she stopped scowling magisterially and invited me in.

Or, well, in an alternate present day:

I sat on the sagging porch, swing my legs and feeling the troubles of the day draining out of me like water.  The lake was beautiful:  almost flat calm, the gentlest lapping against the shore, and silver with moonlight.  I'd had many good times here: first with my parents, when they were still happy together, and later on with my gran.  As I sat there I began to feel that if I sat there long enough I could get to the bottom of what was making me so cranky lately, find out if it was anything worse than poor-quality flour and a somewhat errant little brother.

I never heard them coming.  Of course you don't, when they're vampires.

Well.  I'm starting to wonder if this YA-author-writes-adult-book-about-vampires is becoming a trend.

I really liked it.  Like I said, it's completely, completely different from her other stuff, and it's got a weird rhythm--Sunshine's (yes, that's her name--well, nickname--only Robin McKinley could make that work) storytelling involves a lot of digressions--but once I started, I didn't take a break until I was done.  (Part of the reason I liked the style so much might have been that Sunshine uses a lot of parentheses and dashes).  There's some great slang in the book--it's mostly based on mythology, and it works well--it fits.

She used the c-word (just once that I remember), which was a little jarring, even though it was two-thirds of the way through.  She also said 'dick' a few times.  It was kind of weird, since I'm used to her more left-to-the-imagination type of naked/sex scenes.

Oddly enough, it reminded me of the Anita Blake books.

Comments

[Sarah]

Yo. I started Deerskin when I was too little and got freaked out. I probably should try it again. Do you recommend this one?

[leila]

I really liked it, but it's really, really, really different from the others. If you look at the reviews on Amazon, some people loved it and others hated it. You could always give it a go and see what happens--I'd give it at least until the end of Part One, and then if you don't like it at that point, don't bother.

I've always been scared of Deerskin because I think there's a pretty icky rape scene in it. (Not that I've ever read a non-icky rape scene, but you know what I mean).

[Sarah]

Rape-scene=why I got freaked out. Yeh.

[C.C.]

Quite possibly the worst rape I've ever read. Thanks for the O.K. on Sunshine though, I've been avoiding it for much the same reasons. Should have known better.

[lauren]

For a minute, I thought you were talking about Pure Sunshine, which is NOT something people should recommend. But you aren't, so OK.

I have to take my postcard that I mailed myself to the far away library to get a library card sometime before April 30. Why does EVERYTHING in this city revolve around heightened security?!?

[leila]

Nah, that's a regular library thing. If you don't have a license with your current address, you need a piece of mail.

[lauren]

No, they didn't even give me that option. Everyone must address a postcard to themselves, then bring it in within two weeks, accompanied by a utility bill.

[Leila]

Oh. New York is weird.

[earthsprite]

I loved this book! It was amazing and beggs for a sequal, but she hasn't promised anything.