![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tsaikoWell, over the last few days I've read two books: Sunshine by Robin McKinley and The Black Gryphon by Mercedes Lackey (and Larry Dixon if the cover of my copy is to be believed). Sunshine was something I'd been meaning to read, but hadn't gotten around to. The Black Gryphon is an old favorite of mine that I've read so many times that the spine is broken. This takes quite a few readings to happen since I am extremely anal about not damaging my books.
I think The Black Gryphon is one of Lackey's better books, and I know I've talked about about Lackey's writing in other posts. So I'll concentrate on Sunshine for my commentary.
Okay, am I the only one who spent the last half of this book hoping for a threesome between Mel, Constantine, and Rae? I hope not. It would be hot for all it would be vaguely creepy, in that Con sort of way.
Things I liked:
-The vampires never, ever stopped being creepy. Ever. It was a nice change from vampires acting like normal people adhering to a much more literal definition hemophilia than any one is comfortable with.
-I liked the main character, which surprised me. The reviews on Amazon have not exactly been glowing towards the main character. While she had her flaws, I thought she was interesting and fit the story.
-Unlike some reviewers, I didn't mind the constant mention of food. The main character is a baker! McKinley basically points out baking is her life. Of course she's going to put things in terms of food. I didn't even find it that excessive.
Things I disliked:
- Too many internal monologues. At points it was like reading one big info dump. I could take McKinley randomly dumping several of paragraphs of internal monologue in the middle of a plot point. I could even take it being dumped in the middle of a conversation, although that made it really, really hard to follow what was being said. But I could not take two paragraphs of internal monologue being dumped in the middle of a sentence being spoken by the main character. At that point, a line has been crossed. It made me want to reach through the book and slap McKinley.
- Repetitive book is repetitive. Okay, yes, I get it. Vampires don't move like humans. Humans feel like prey around vampires. Mel has an ass load of tattoos. The knife is metal. Rae bakes a lot. FOR GOD'S SAKE, YOU DO NOT NEED TO REPEAT EVERY DAY THAT RAE GETS UP AT 4:30 TO GO TO WORK. I GOT IT. I honestly thought that McKinley could have edited out about a quarter of this book and not touched any of the plot.
- The final boss kind of sucked. I wanted the battle to be more epic, and it wound up being kind of pathetic.
Weird sense of humor moment:
- I know that it wasn't supposed to be this way, but I could literally not stop laughing when I realized that Rae had taken out a vampire with what I would call a butter knife. All I could picture was her snapping, grabbing one of them, and running screaming out of the bakery with it in her hand at the vampire. It's just a mental image that makes me giggle every time. Even more so because McKinley and all her characters treat it with complete seriousness. Not even a trace of humor to be found.
Really though. A butter knife.
I think The Black Gryphon is one of Lackey's better books, and I know I've talked about about Lackey's writing in other posts. So I'll concentrate on Sunshine for my commentary.
Okay, am I the only one who spent the last half of this book hoping for a threesome between Mel, Constantine, and Rae? I hope not. It would be hot for all it would be vaguely creepy, in that Con sort of way.
Things I liked:
-The vampires never, ever stopped being creepy. Ever. It was a nice change from vampires acting like normal people adhering to a much more literal definition hemophilia than any one is comfortable with.
-I liked the main character, which surprised me. The reviews on Amazon have not exactly been glowing towards the main character. While she had her flaws, I thought she was interesting and fit the story.
-Unlike some reviewers, I didn't mind the constant mention of food. The main character is a baker! McKinley basically points out baking is her life. Of course she's going to put things in terms of food. I didn't even find it that excessive.
Things I disliked:
- Too many internal monologues. At points it was like reading one big info dump. I could take McKinley randomly dumping several of paragraphs of internal monologue in the middle of a plot point. I could even take it being dumped in the middle of a conversation, although that made it really, really hard to follow what was being said. But I could not take two paragraphs of internal monologue being dumped in the middle of a sentence being spoken by the main character. At that point, a line has been crossed. It made me want to reach through the book and slap McKinley.
- Repetitive book is repetitive. Okay, yes, I get it. Vampires don't move like humans. Humans feel like prey around vampires. Mel has an ass load of tattoos. The knife is metal. Rae bakes a lot. FOR GOD'S SAKE, YOU DO NOT NEED TO REPEAT EVERY DAY THAT RAE GETS UP AT 4:30 TO GO TO WORK. I GOT IT. I honestly thought that McKinley could have edited out about a quarter of this book and not touched any of the plot.
- The final boss kind of sucked. I wanted the battle to be more epic, and it wound up being kind of pathetic.
Weird sense of humor moment:
- I know that it wasn't supposed to be this way, but I could literally not stop laughing when I realized that Rae had taken out a vampire with what I would call a butter knife. All I could picture was her snapping, grabbing one of them, and running screaming out of the bakery with it in her hand at the vampire. It's just a mental image that makes me giggle every time. Even more so because McKinley and all her characters treat it with complete seriousness. Not even a trace of humor to be found.
Really though. A butter knife.