The Vampires Don't Sparkle in This One: a Review of "Sunshine" by Robin McKinley

Rae “Sunshine” Seddon is perfectly content with her normal life working in her family’s bakery, going shopping for used books with her Librarian friend, and doing weekly movie nights with her boyfriend, Mel. One night when Rae decides to skip movie night and instead head down to her family’s abandoned lakeside cabin she finds herself kidnapped by Vampires. Held captive with another vampire who goes by Constantine, Rae is forced to tap into her long suppressed magic powers in order to save both of their lives. However, in doing so she sets off a chain of events that will plunge her into the world of magic and vampires in ways she never expected.

“I don't believe in fate," she said at last. "But I do believe in... loopholes. I think a lot of what keeps the world going is the result of accidents — happy or otherwise — and taking advantage of these.”

I have to admit that I have DNF’d this book at least three times previous to completing it while procrastinating working on essays for my college classes. I’m pretty sure that I abandoned the book in approximately the same spot every time too simply because the beginning wasn’t attention-grabbing enough to keep me interested. I think that part of the problem was that the first time I picked up Sunshine I was in my Twilight phase in middle school and everything that Sunshine is, Twilight isn’t.

This book is weird. I mean that in the best way possible but there is no other word that I can think of to describe it. I frequently found myself having to go back and re-read a paragraph because I would get to the end of the page and the only thought in my brain would be: “????” Some of this comes from Sunshine’s internal monologue being rambling and that it frequently lobbed information at the reader that ended up being unnecessary and distracted from the plot of the book. That being said, all of the unnecessary information created a rich and diverse environment for the story to take place in and I found myself wanting to wander down the cobblestone streets, duck into the charm shops, and stop at Charlie’s for one of Sunshine’s infamous cinnamon rolls.

However, an excellent world does not create a plot out of thin air and that is my biggest issue with the novel: I am not sure what the plot was, even after getting to the end of the book. Due to the constant infodump, every single plotline that McKinley created felt like a subplot and the “real” story never seemed to rise to the surface. I’m going to speak generally so as not to spoil the ending but there is a big boss battle that takes place where the climax of a story normally would but there was no real tension or build-up to it. We get to the end and it’s not clear why Sunshine and Constantine are doing what they are doing.

On top of that, the ending is very open-ended and is practically begging for a sequel. Unfortunately, Sunshine first came out in 2003 and there is no sign of a sequel ever coming. Now don’t get me wrong, I love an ambiguous ending as much as the next person but I am left with too many questions to even be remotely satisfied with this one being left where it is.

TL:DR: Would I recommend this book to someone? Yes, if you like vampire stories with awesome world-building, a cool magic system, and an author that has nailed the show, don't tell aspect of writing. If you get bored easily or have a hard time keeping up with lots of (maybe unimportant) information at once this is not the book for you.

Audience: New Adult or Adult readers are most suited for this book due to the pacing and some of the content. Older Young Adult readers (juniors/seniors in high school) would probably also enjoy this book.

Content warnings (may contain spoilers): Semi-graphic depictions of violence, semi-graphic depictions of consensual sex, cheating, blood and gore, legal alcohol consumption, mentions of drugs