Review: Great story!  World building needs work
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 17, 2012
I generally liked the book although there were some things with which I had issues. As we all know, KA's strengths do not lie in world building. This continues with Sun. However, I do think that she did a better job here than she did with Golden Dynasty. What I do like about her world building is that she doesn't bog down the first few chapters with an information dump. She provides the details as they occur naturally in the story.Lucian is a typical KA hero hyped up on steroids! Which is exactly how he should be when you put him into the context of the world that she built. He is a 800 plus year old vampire who just happens to be at the top of the vampire food chain in terms of strength, fighting ability, ruthlessness, etc. KA follows her forumla in making Lucian a big, jerky alphahole in the first half of the book. IMO, she does a great job of redeeming him without diminishing any of his alpha characteristics. I hate it when an author spends the first half of the book setting up the H's dominant alpha traits and then when redeeming him, turns him wimpy. Lucian does NOT undergo a personality transplant. He stays a dominant, possessive, protective, controlling vampire. Period. That's what he is and that fact is central to the story. Leah has to accept that he can't change who he is and that is what he is referring to in the whole book when he talks about "taming" her.Leah. My feelings about Leah jumped all over the place. First, she annoyed me to no end with her excessively immature actions. And, her explanation to Lucien that she's not going to grow up until she's 90 just didn't cut it for me. I would have been okay with her retaining a child LIKE sense of humor. I was not okay with her being childISH and immature. What 40 year old woman do you know that throws spitballs and passes notes in class? I did like that she tried to stand up to him despite it being a completely one-sided battle. He used mind control to dictate her actions, mesmerized her, isolated her from family/friends, took away all resources that she could have used to run, and was strong enough to pick up a car. If Leah had tried to run under those circumstances it would have meant trying to leave on foot. How long do you think it would have taken Lucien to find her? About 10 minutes. Plus a vampire could make the bite orgasmically pleasurable to the "donor." The last half of the book had Leah finally gaining some maturity while retaining her personality. She understood that Lucien's character and personality were in a large part dictated by WHAT he was just as much as WHO.*****Spoilers*****Spoilers*****Spoilers*****Spoilers*****Don't say I didn't warn you!As far as the 'did Lucian cheat?' question, I re-read the passage. It's pretty clear to me that he went to the feast intending ONLY to feed. When he was finished and was leaving, Kitty asked if that was all or something to that effect. For the first time he thinks about her as a person NOT just a meal on legs. This is due to Leah's influence. When he thought about how he was treating Kitty in that light, he felt sorry for her. That's when he turned back to her and removes her dress (and, he does get the appropriate male biological response to a naked female). Because you don't know until later what actually took place between Lucien and Kitty, the implication is that he cheated. The reader doesn't learn that he didn't until later in the book. When he discussed it with Leah he admitted that he was tempted. I not only don't have issues with this, but I think it is an example of how Lucian was in the process of changing the way he thought. The changes that Leah must make in order to accomodate Lucian are obvious. I think the changes Leah made in Lucien's outlook are more subtle. He was learning to think about and take into consideration, other's feelings.I agree with everyone who was irritated with Lucian calling Leah "pet" especailly considering that was a name he used for Kitty. I didn't like that, at all. Sweetheart was better. Sweetling was perfect.On the whole, I enjoyed Sun and will re-read it from time-to-time.