"Sunshine" by Robin McKinley (published 2004)



I might come back to this one: I just couldn't get into the story as much as I would have liked. Something about the very drastic contrast between the arbitrariness of day to day life in the coffee shop, family stuff, and romantic relationships and its stark contrast to the world-history of the Wars between the Others (of various mythological manifestations: i.e. vampires and sorcerers, etc.). Put more simply, there wasn't enough a blurred line right off of the bat between the fantastic and the normal (a blurry-ness which gives that aura of wonder to the fairy-tales I typically read). Also, this narrative reminds me a bit of the television show "True Blood" and I was never a fan of that one either (although my husband is). Lastly, I'm an old soul, admittedly, and McKinley's writing here caters more to young souls (personal opinion); the narrator herself is fairly young (early to mid 20s?) and everything in her world is deemed devoid of mystery on accounts of her attitude toward life, but, then again, I'm only 75 pages in. I'm not totally giving up on this one, but I think I'm going to turn to some other books to finish up the summer. Something about "Sunshine" just didn't quite grasp me as much as McKinley's two great novels, "Beauty" and "Rose Daughter" did.

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