First and better

Before there was Twilight there was Sunshine.

Wow, that sounds all metaphorical and poetic. But I'm being literal! Sure, Stephenie Meyer's vampire series is flying off the shelves. And hey, it ain't bad. Meyer writes well with an easy-to-read style. She's just not (and I'm preparing for the hatred that's sure to come my way for saying this) the best storyteller. What I mean is, she writes 100 pages of plot in 500 pages. Throw in 300 pages of swoon, and I'm starting to get bored. (Yes, I've read all three, and yes, I'll read the fourth. I'm hypocritical, I know.)

But Robin McKinley's infinitely superior Sunshine is, well, infinitely superior. McKinley's style is equally easy-to-read, the characters are better developed, and the plot is a bit less juvenile. Not that that's necessarily a flaw in Meyer's books, since they're young adult lit to begin with. I'm just saying, if you want something in the same vein that's a bit more...well, interesting, check out Sunshine.

Unlike the Twilight series, the supernatural is so seamlessly a part of Sunshine's world that no one is shocked to find vampires or werewolves or zombies or wizards or anything. And it's all presented so nonchalantly that you might not even be aware you're reading a fantasy/science fiction book until you make yourself stop and think about it. And the main character, who narrates, speaks so conversationally that you feel like she's in the room with you, telling you a story.

On second thought, maybe I can be literal and poetic at the same time. Sunshine was first, and brilliant. Twilight came later, and was a little, well, dimmer.