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A review by brandece1
A Bad Day for Sunshine by Darynda Jones
2.0
Book club pick
I can't lie, I did read a few reviews of this one before starting so I had a feeling it wasn't going to be for me, but I did go in ready to be wrong. I was not wrong. For me one of the worst parts of this was the narrator. Usually I don't pay much attention to narrators, but I felt like this one was so monotone. This one is told in Sunshine and Ari's POV, and I just felt like all of the characters young and old sounded like an older lady. Also the transition from one POV to the other was way off, like I often didn't realize we'd gone from one to the other. One minute we were at the police station with Sun and the next at school with Ari in the middle of the chapter. I've seen reviews that say this gives Gilmore Girls, with the banter between mother and daughter and the small town, and I can see where that is coming from but it definitely missed the mark for me. The dialogue felt cringy at some points (I literally rolled by eyes at "I think it's time to hit the streets"). I could not get behind the set up of a mother/teenage daughter crime fighting duo (that was another eye roll). One more big thing I really didn't care for the fact that the Native American character was called "the Apache" instead of his name by his Uncle, or how the Mexican possible new recruit is so stereotypical. There were so many people introduced in this (too long) book and I did like most of them. Sunshine is attracted to more men than I can remember in this, but Levi is who I would consider to be the main guy, and I did like his character. Their relationship is confusing as heck to me, but I did like his relationship with his nephew and how they both loved Ari. I actually really enjoyed the friendship between Ari and Jimmy (Levi's nephew). I will say that I didn't guess who the bad guy was so I did appreciate that. Truly I think maybe had I been reading this with my eyes I could have liked it just a little more and I am kind of curious about who kidnapped Sunshine when she was a teen, but definitely not enough to finish the series.
I can't lie, I did read a few reviews of this one before starting so I had a feeling it wasn't going to be for me, but I did go in ready to be wrong. I was not wrong. For me one of the worst parts of this was the narrator. Usually I don't pay much attention to narrators, but I felt like this one was so monotone. This one is told in Sunshine and Ari's POV, and I just felt like all of the characters young and old sounded like an older lady. Also the transition from one POV to the other was way off, like I often didn't realize we'd gone from one to the other. One minute we were at the police station with Sun and the next at school with Ari in the middle of the chapter. I've seen reviews that say this gives Gilmore Girls, with the banter between mother and daughter and the small town, and I can see where that is coming from but it definitely missed the mark for me. The dialogue felt cringy at some points (I literally rolled by eyes at "I think it's time to hit the streets"). I could not get behind the set up of a mother/teenage daughter crime fighting duo (that was another eye roll). One more big thing I really didn't care for the fact that the Native American character was called "the Apache" instead of his name by his Uncle, or how the Mexican possible new recruit is so stereotypical. There were so many people introduced in this (too long) book and I did like most of them. Sunshine is attracted to more men than I can remember in this, but Levi is who I would consider to be the main guy, and I did like his character. Their relationship is confusing as heck to me, but I did like his relationship with his nephew and how they both loved Ari. I actually really enjoyed the friendship between Ari and Jimmy (Levi's nephew). I will say that I didn't guess who the bad guy was so I did appreciate that. Truly I think maybe had I been reading this with my eyes I could have liked it just a little more and I am kind of curious about who kidnapped Sunshine when she was a teen, but definitely not enough to finish the series.