Book Review: Sunshine in Darkness by Beth Winokur

A few weeks ago, a fellow blogger and Goodreads friend and author Beth sent me an invite over in Goodreads to pick up her free ebook from Amazon, Sunshine in Darkness.  I thought why not since I always love to explore new novels and also check out the ebook reading experience.

Goodreads review:  This is probably one of the first demon possession book that I have read. I didn’t really know what to expect at first but that doesn’t matter because it has a way of helping attach us to Sunshine/Rose right of the beginning from where she tries to reclaim her body. Her struggles and the feeling of desperation to reclaim her life just makes us root for her. And when she gets back her body, her life turns around and as she tries to cope with everything around her, I couldn’t help but to read on and on. Its gripping and the attachment to her made me want to know more and more what happens around the corner as things start spiraling out of control. I loved it! It was fun and suspenseful! 🙂

Lets start with a little plot.  We start off with the character of Sunshine who is just a soul floating about because ever since she was young, her body had been possessed by an evil demon.  This demon has ruined her life and has made her mom’s life miserable as well.  However, she still keeps finding the opportunity to reclaim her body and take her life into her own hands.  One day, that opportunity is offered to her and she takes it.  Slowly, she needs to grasp the aspects of basic living that she hasn’t had in the past seventeen years and at the same time, learn to the control her emotions.  This leads her to hurt someone and eventually her mom put her into a mental institution to help straighten her out.  As Sunshine’s life crumbles, she realizes that these evil demons are everywhere.  As things get from bad to worse, she has to find a way to escape from their grasps but also, pretend that she is normal.

I don’t think there’s any spoilers in there.  My Goodreads review really covers it all.  This book was great because it was a gripping story.  I think of the best parts of the book is that right from the start, it gets the readers to fully attach themselves to our main character Sunshine.  We understand how she feels as a floating soul just observing a demon ruin her actual life.  It makes us feel her sad she is that she can’t control any part of it but she tries to get it all back.  There’s a lot of emotions and sometimes, the way the author puts it makes us feel and experience everything and makes us want to read on. It makes the readers want to hope for the eventual hopeful days even when things start crumbling down around Sunshine.

I love easy reads.  This one is extremely easy.  It was my first experience reading a complete ebook and I can tell you that the story and the writing was so good that I didn’t bother me one bit where I was reading it.

If you get a chance and you’re into this sort of thing, go for it.  Its a simple but complex story at the same time, but does a really good job and holding onto your emotions and taking you for a gripping ride through demon possession and learning to live life. I’ll definitely recommend it.  There isn’t much scary moments but more suspenseful and intense ones.  A thrill to read! One of the best young adult novels I’ve read so far 🙂