Sunshine: A Novel

Product Information

The tone rarely rises above the gossipy. It's like reading the script of a drama about strippers that hooks its viewers by having beautiful almost naked women in every shot. All the girls are clique-y and there are certain protocols to be observed in each club to get into the cool girls clique, not that anyone stays more than a few months anywhere. Everyone parties, everyone gets drunk almost every night, everyone does cocaine and everyone enjoys what they are doing. As the author says she is lazy and likes a lot of money, and this job pays very well and enables her to live well, hang around the pool, go to the spa, get plastic surgery and go shopping. It really sounds like made-for-tv.

Retirement should never be this hard! As the group works together to solve the puzzles, they begin to open up to each other about their past lives and what brought them to this retirement community which they hoped would be so relaxing it would solve all their previous worries! But the group, through their questioning of suspects, has put themselves in danger. Can they solve these crimes before one of them becomes the next victim? Why does it seem the police continually seem to look the other way? The plot: unfocused, slow. It has a few exciting hot spots, spaced widely apart. The end is anti-climatic and doesn't feel worth all the build up. I wasn't thrilled with all the time she spent world-building, which didn't seem to make sense for a standalone novel in which most of that information would never be used or heard from again. If this reminded me of Darkfever so much, why only 2.5 stars? It has the addictive reading quality but oh boy is our first person pov heroine into rambling. She goes off on tangents, which sometimes have observational little life nuggets but mostly make you want to skim. There's also a feeling of being dizzily just dropped into the world and I spent most the beginning trying to understand who and what story the author was telling.

Book Review

I can promise that it almost worked and they were almost home free except they'd miscalculated one thing - my short attention span. Sure the ice cream was delicious and kept me entertained but there was just so much of it and the mint ice cream was just a little too much in ratio to the choc chip that I like and even the chocolate sauce couldn't entirely keep my concentration.

Firstly, loved that it was an Aussie who wrote this. There's something about reading a book set in the Country you live in and you can visualise as well as understand the culture she's describing. I kept wanting to know who all these "celebrities" were that she hinted to, throughout her career. Sunshine certainly has a great sense of humour and had me giggling at her "rhetorics" to certain people and situations she found herself in. Actually, she summed up one year in her Downside quote which ends each Chapter - "if this year were a drink, it would be colonoscopy prep." Think we could all relate that one to 2020 covid year we've just been through. It’s the true story angle, the love of nature ( Let’s go to the mountains ), their power to soothe the wounded soul and recharge your drained batteries. It’s the strength of the emotion on display, the appeal to honesty in relationships, even when they are going through some rough patches. It’s the request for respect of personal choices and the right to hold on to your dignity as you are about to exit the scene. Unlike the other candidates who have worked towards this their whole lives, Violet is small and brittle and never meant for this to be her path. And other candidates do not have the children of rebel leaders waiting to take revenge. Slimming World’s Taste the Sunshine is just one of many money-saving Slimming World cookbooks in our collection, and they’re available exclusively to members in their local groups or from the online member shop. Whether you’re looking for fakeaway curries, tempting puds or healthier versions of your favourite comfort foods, there’s a Slimming World recipe book to suit you. Here are some of the others in our bookshop: I'm fine with characters with flaws, but not when there isn't anything else to like about them. Death can bring out the worse in people, and boy does it do that here. Kate doesn't give amputating her leg a real consideration...because she doesn't want her daughter to have a one-legged mother? No mother is better? Her daughter's father shows up for five minutes, growls, and inexplicably disappears. Her new husband Sam's patience eventually wears thin, and he goes off and leaves his adopted daughter for a bit when the going gets rough. Everyone makes big grandiose statements about looking out for Kate's little girl, Jill, but then go and do whatever gives them some short term satisfaction.The worst part though is how Klein manipulates the reader into thinking Kate is such a hero. Yes, it is very sad and I would probably be a mess in that situation as well. And I even teared up at the end -- because I could not fathom how Kate could be so narrow-minded. And I could not fathom how her doctor didn't even try to convince her to fight! FIGHT GOSH DAMMIT! I feel very sorry she went through this pain, but to ignore the possibilities that could have prolonged her time with her daughter is aggravatingly hypocritical. These were people with serious personality warts, and it is infuriating to see them unexplored, swept under the rug, and only brought out when it's time to pull at the heart strings.