Grade: B-

Amazon told me that if I liked Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire series and Kim Harrison’s books, then I would like this book. Amazon also suggested that I might like Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter books, but Amazon was wrong about that. I hated them. Amazon lies, you guys. Anyway, I was a little wary about this book, but I was told by a few people that it’s pretty good. That was why on Friday, after work, I opened up a can of Pepsi and a bag of chips, collapsed on my extremely comfortable couch, and set out to read this little gem. By Sunday night, I still wasn’t done. I think I’m a fast reader and can usually finish 400 pages in three to four hours, but with this book, it took me three days. I mean, I just couldn’t get into it, you know? Technically, there is nothing wrong with it. The plot is sound, the world-building is impressive, the dialogue isn’t painful, and the characters didn’t irritate me, but at varying times while reading this, I found myself opting to take a nap instead. It didn’t blow me away, didn’t make me want to throw it across the room… it was just… eh.

Rae “Sunshine” Seddon is a pastry baker for a coffee shop that her mother and step-father own. She is currently dating a former biker who practically worships her and has two little brothers who actually respect and adore her. In fact, everyone loves Sunshine because she’s so wonderful and sweet and she makes the best cinnamon rolls ever! In her free time, she likes to go to the library and thrift stores to look for old vampire novels because she can’t get enough of them. One day, Sunshine decides to go for a walk BY HERSELF by the lake where her family cabin used to be—I’ve already forgotten why—and gets abducted by a pack of vampires who take her to an abandoned house in the middle of the woods and manacle her to the wall. They taunt her, fuck with her a little bit, then leave her alone… with a very hungry vampire who is also chained to a wall across the room (at this point, I’m making distressed noises about being reminded about that awful Sherrilyn Kenyon book). Sunshine freaks out because she’s never been up close and personal with a real liv—uh, undead vampire before, but instead of getting attacked by the vampire, the vampire demands that she talks and Sunshine, who is always up to talk about herself and her family and her childhood, lets loose and we get a bunch of flashback after flashback galore!

Oh, and if I haven’t mentioned that Sunshine lives in a world where vampires and werewolves and demons and other things that go hump in the night also exist, here it is! They are called the Others and there was something called the Voodoo Wars, which was a battle between the humans and the Others and I think the humans won, but don’t quote me on that. There is now a tenuous truce between the humans and the Others, except everyone, including the Others, are scared shitless of the vampires who are called the Dark Others. This is because vampires are the badass and they don’t give a shit about no steenkin’ truce and they pretty much still do whatever the funk they want. The federal government established a police force to deal strictly with supernatural crime called Special Other Forces or SOA and without Sunshine’s knowledge, have been watching her for quite some time. This is because Sunshine is the daughter of a really powerful sorcerer and during one of her flashbacks, we learn that she can transmogrify—that is, change objects into something else—things, and that her sorceress grandmother taught her how to do this. She uses this power to fashion a key that would unlock the manacles and she and the vampire escape together. Because they escape during daylight, Sunshine also uses her powers to create a psychic umbrella for the vampire so that he is not damaged by the sun.

By the way, Sunshine derives her power from the sun. How cute.

In an average vampire romance novel, this would have been the jumping off point for the relationship between Sunshine and the vampire, Constantine. That is not the case for this story. After Sunshine and Con separate, Sunshine babbles some more about baking, her family, her quaint neighborhood, her weird grandmother, and the SOA. This is when I started to get listless and bored. Suddenly, I was finding other things to do. Heck, at one point, I even set down the book because of a sudden urge to scrub the toilet, and I don’t usually get near the toilet with a brush and some Comet until Tim yells at me to clean the goddamn bathroom because I don’t do anything but sit around and watch TV, anyway (yes, I’m a deadbeat girlfriend). I mean, Robin McKinley writes good prose; it’s nice, lilting, and Sunshine is a quirky, funny narrator. Unfortunately, it only made me kind of sleepy. It’s like when a really nice person that you really don’t want to be mean to starts telling you about her weekend and you’re reluctant to tell her to fuck off, so you just start nodding and saying shit like, “oh, yeah?” and “that’s nice”. I wanted more action, I wanted more adrenaline-pumped scenes. I was a casual fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the back blurb compared the book to Buffy, so I was expecting some asskicking and witty bantering tossed around by Sunshine and the villains (which reminds me: how come when a book has a vampire in it and a remotely “sassy” heroine, it’s compared to Buffy?), but what I got was this weird amalgamation of anything by Maeve Binchy and Salem’s Lot by Stephen King.

As for a true male counterpart to Sunshine, there really isn’t one. The vampire Con shows up only to remind the reader that yes, this is a vampire book, but he’s just… kind of there. Like a placeholder, you know? Sunshine’s boyfriend Mel, on the other hand, is this too-nice, too-understanding, hold-her-hand-while-she- slowly-loses-her-shit kind of guy who kind of gets annoying. At one point, I just kind of wanted him to grab Sunshine’s shoulders, shake her, and demand to know what the funk is going on with her, but he doesn’t do that. If my normally “sunny” (forgive me, I had to do it) girlfriend got attacked and disappeared for two days, came back all weird and shit, I would expect her to be a little off her game for a bit and give her a wide berth, but after six months and she’s still acting funny, I would start demanding answers. I think that’s one of my biggest problems with this book. Everyone—and yes, I know that everybody loves Sunshine—is just too understanding about Sunshine acting all weird and shit. Why didn’t somebody slap her just once and screamed, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” in her face?

And the villains? There was this strong build-up, talking about how dangerous and ruthless these vampires are, but when it comes down to it, there really wasn’t an immediate threat to Sunshine and her family. I didn’t get a sense of urgency. Everyone and their brothers talk about how the vampires will take over the world and every non-vampire will become a slave, but aside from a couple of dudes who get knocked off off-screen, nothing happens. There’s just too much goddamned talking. NOTHING HAPPENS. The final showdown between Sunshine and the “big boss”? Totally anti-climactic. It lasted maybe three paragraphs. I got nothing from it. After all the build-up, there was just no pay-off and I was really disappointed. I was kind of expecting a mano-a-mano deal between Sunshine and the “big boss” on par with Buffy’s fight with the Master at the end of Season 1, but I got diddly. What a rip-off.

As I was reading this book, I got the feeling that Ms. McKinley is setting us up for a series, ergo all this foundation and “origin” cakes, but she says it herself on her website that she does not know if there will be a follow-up book to this. The end of the book certainly has a “to be continued” feel to it, but because the author is not planning on writing a sequel, it just left a “that’s it?” feeling in my mouth. Reading this book was kind of like receiving an elaborately wrapped present and while you’re opening it, the giver says, “you’re going to love it” and “this is going to knock your socks off” and after you’ve finally got it unwrapped, you find out that the giver gave you… socks. Sunshine talked too much, there wasn’t enough blood and gore, and the pacing was just too damned slow for my taste. Plus with all the flashbacks to Sunshine’s childhood and shit, I kind of got confused after a while and I wasn’t sure what was going on. If Ms. McKinley wrote a sequel to this book, I would probably still read it, just to see what she would do with the Sunshine character, especially when the canon and origin has already been established, but if it’s any more of this Maeve Binchy small-town shit again, count me out. Thanks.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 21st, 2005 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Books, Grade: B, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Suspense/Horror. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.