Vampires and Cinnamon Buns

"He paused. 'You need food,' he said. 'I can't even feed you.' He glanced down at himself as if perhaps he was expecting a peanut-butter sandwich to be suspended about his person."

In my opinion Sunshine, by Robin McKinley, has to be one of the most quotable books to date (at least of the books on my bookshelf). My sister got me started on it after numerous re-readings, upon which she exhausted me with a full, if not hazy, rundown. It's the kind of book that appeals to our *ahem* "odd" sensibilities (while many ordinary things offend those said sensibilities, like cookie cutter McMansions crowded around golf courses and prepackaged sliced yam patties.) It's about a baker and a vampire and a town under the threat of the dangerous "other" named Bo, and the gang he leads. Can you see why we like it already? We've both read all of McKinley's other books, most of them are even on my bookshelf, our favorite aspects of them being the humanity, the introspection, and the humor (honestly, only McKinley's Beauty would be concerned with fertilizing the Beast's Roses, let alone with unicorn manure) Sunshine is all that and more (manure not withstanding).

When I first started reading Sunshine I was expecting, well, a story. Instead I was handed the ravings of a mad woman let loose from all the binding expectations of marketability and proper form. What a jolly trip. The heroine, Sunshine, is a young introverted baker with a deep fascination with vampires and a complex that compels her to feed people. Being kidnapped by vampires she chained to a wall in an old ballroom as a form of torture for another vampire the gang captured (steak in front of a starving man). The story then moves along as Sunshine realizes she has the ability to rescue the vampire (Rescue a vampire? Yes, she knows it's stupid, and never done, and in all ways improbable because vampires kill humans.) She becomes a sunshade of sorts, her contact allowing him to go out in daylight without going up in flames, and together they join forces to stop the evil vampire (aren't they all evil? Yes, she knows, it's never done; you don't fight a vampire). But the bulk of story is concentrated in Sunshine's head, as it were, the reader being taken on a trip of inner strife, surprise, denial, anger, bitterness, and the need to bake really big Cinnamon buns. Ah yes, a very good, very quotable, book.

"This is really stupid, but I also discovered that I somehow believed that he was the one human at Charlie's who might be able to stop me in time if my bad genes suddenly kicked in and I picked up my electric cherry pitter and went for the nearest warm body. That he'd drown me efficiently in a vat of pasta sauce while everyone else was standing around with their mouths open wringing their hands and saying, who are we going to get to cover the bakery on such short notice?"