Addictive, emotional, refreshing. If you enjoy women's fiction but aren't big on the unrealistic romance (same, guys, same) this may be a great book for you. This one surprised me. It's a great little read, and I flew right through it. You're not always going to like the protagonist, but she doesn't always like herself either. She's made a lot of mistakes she's partially in denial about, and isn't quite sure how to fix them. It really makes you think about how we present ourselves online. This is my first read by author Laura Dave, and I'm very interested in checking out her other work.

Put yourself in these shoes: you wake on your birthday to your favorite song playing. Your loving and successful husband is next to you. Your future is bright. The money is rolling in. You're relatively famous, to the point of having an upcoming show on the Food Network. And then it all comes crashing down around you. Here's the deal: Sunshine (our main character) is not authentic. She's basically a product, complete with a fabricated past and talent. That cooking show on YouTube and bestselling cookbooks she's so famous for? They're not really her. She's been carefully crafted to be a success. In fact, she barely even cooks.

Someone knows the truth about dear Sunny and they're eager to spill it. Her social media has been hacked, revealing the truth about her online persona. She's not who she's made herself out to be, and now everyone knows it. Secrets kept for years are now out in the open. Say goodbye to those cookbooks, new show, and loving husband. She doesn't have much left.

Sunny flees to her childhood home... the real one. Her sister is less than welcoming, and she finds her six year old niece (love her!) hard to understand. She intends to somehow turn things around and redeem herself, pushing herself right back into the limelight. But is that even possible?

I received an ARC of this book from Net Galley and Simon & Schuster, thank you! My review is honest and unbiased

I found this book really interesting. It was very timely as it dealt with social media and our ability to totally distort the truth to make anything look how we want it to. Unfortunately for Sunny, the main character, her world came crashing down when her lies were revealed. It was interesting to follow Sunny as she tried to put her life back together. Well written book but I felt the ending was rushed. Full review on Goodreads.

As soon as I knew this book was coming out, I've been eagerly awaiting its arrival. I gave Ms. Dave's last two books 5 stars, and they were both the kind of books that were hard to let go of when they were finished. And as much as I like many of the authors that produce a book every summer, waiting two years also increased the expectations that I would like this book a lot.

But it didn't really work for me, unfortunately. Maybe if it was the first book of hers I've read, I might feel differently, but it just didn't engage me the way her others have. Sunshine was a pretty awful person, and I'm not sure having all her learn all those important life lessons through losing mattered was worth the time it took to read about it. And she surrounded herself with pretty awful people -- I'm not sure there was a single character (except for her precocious 6-year-old niece Sammy) who was likable in the entire book.

I'm sorry that her world was filled with such awful people, but I didn't really enjoy reading this book very much. And maybe there are people out there who haven't picked up on the often fickle and shallow nature of fame, especially via social media, but are they in a place to hear about it from a book like this? (Probably not.) This book wasn't terrible: it just didn't stand up to the caliber of Ms. Dave's other books, or some of the other books I've read so far this summer.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Hello, Sunshine is my second novel to read by Laura Dave. Once again she has written a relevant book that is surprisingly refreshing. It's the perfect beach read, not too heavy, but not full of fluff either. She creates flawed, well-rounded characters and shapes a story that is realistic. The main character, Sunshine, has a wonderful husband and a successful cooking show on YouTube. Her followers adore her girl-next-door, farmer's daughter persona, and she's poised to have her own show on The Food Network when her world of lies crumbles around her. Hello, Sunshine illuminates the white lies we tell through social media, how they can become bigger lies, and how they truly affect who we become.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an ARC of this book in return for my honest review. This is my kind of book-woman loses everything she has in order to find herself again. The main character-Sunshine-is a popular Youtube cooking show host with an entire online identity built on lies. When it all comes crashing down, she is pretty unlikable to those around her. I liked the way that the author handled her "recovery" and I felt like the secondary characters were drawn pretty well. I wish that we had gotten more of her story post-recovery but it was also okay the way that it was left.

I was initially drawn to Hello, Sunshine because of its vibrant summery cover but wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I actually sat down to read it. What I got was a timely, relevant, and thought-provoking exploration of how people present themselves online in this age of technology and social media.

Sunshine MacKenzie seems to have it all – a loving husband, a gorgeous apartment in Manhattan, and a wildly successful YouTube cooking show with millions of followers that will soon transition to an even bigger audience once it starts airing on the Food Network. As perfect as Sunshine’s life sounds, it soon becomes clear that her life is actually more along the lines of a house of cards just waiting to be toppled over and trampled on. You see, Sunshine’s entire online persona is just that – a persona. Everything that her fanbase loves about her and that has made her such a success is nothing but a pack of lies. A pack of lies that Sunshine and her associates have successfully kept under wraps, or so they thought. When Sunshine’s social media accounts are hacked and the hacker starts unraveling her life one lie at a time, her entire life and career fall apart right in front of her and no amount of PR damage control can stop the bleeding. Sunshine loses her show, most of her followers, her husband, and her home, and ends up fleeing to her real hometown and to her estranged sister.

The rest of the book follows Sunshine as she tries to figure out what to do next. Is there’s a way to get her old life back or will reuniting with her sister and spending some quality time with her family, away from the media frenzy, set Sunshine on a different path? Will she decide there’s more to life than fame, fans, and the stress of trying to maintain an appealing online persona?



LIKES
I think what I liked most about Hello, Sunshine was just how relevant the book’s central premise is, that so many people are not being authentic when they are online. Just as Sunshine has an online persona that has been crafted and scripted for her, there are many who aren’t even in show business who portray themselves as how they want to be perceived online, even if it’s completely contrary to what their life is actually like. It’s something I think about whenever I see someone online who just seems like their life is picture perfect in every way. Life is too messy for things to always appear that perfect, if that makes any sense. Or I might even think of it in terms of myself – how do others know if I’m being authentic or if I’m, in essence, putting on a show for them by being what I think they want me to be.

Hello, Sunshine also made me think about how vulnerable we really are if we’ve put ourselves out there on social media – how easily accounts can be hacked and someone’s life can be turned upside down if they happen to make the wrong person angry.

In addition to being a thought-provoking read about social media and authenticity, Hello, Sunshine is also just an entertaining read as well. All of the drama that surrounded Sunshine’s fall from grace kept me engaged throughout and I kept thinking what a great movie it would be. Desperate Housewives kept coming to mind as I was reading.

As fake as her online persona is, the Sunshine we’re presented with is brutally honest and she’s dying to give us a blow-by-blow account of how she royally messed up her own life. If you like that kind of personality, Sunshine is very likable and you’ll want to follow her journey and see where she went wrong at every step along the way.



DISLIKES
My main dislike is that I figured out who the hacker was almost immediately. I kept hoping I was wrong and that there would be a huge surprise revealed, but my first guess ended up being correct so that was kind of a letdown for me. I also didn’t buy the hacker’s reasoning for doing what they did, so that slightly hampered what was otherwise a very enjoyable read. Hello, Sunshine was still a solid LIKE for me, but a little less predictability and a little more believability here would moved it from the LIKE column into the LOVE column.

FINAL THOUGHTS
If you’re looking for a quick and entertaining read that still manages to be quite thought-provoking, I’d say Hello, Sunshine fits the bill. I think it would make for a great beach or vacation read.

RATING: 3.5 STARS

Thank You to Simon and Schuster for providing me with an advance copy of Laura Dave's novel, Hello, Sunshine, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT - Sunshine Mackenzie is a rising star in the world of social media chefs. She is on the brink of transitioning from Youtube videos to a high-scale production show on The Food Network. The only problem is Sunshine is not the image that she has created. She is not a farmer's daughter and did not grow up in the rural south. She can't even really cook. Just as her star is rising, her secret is exposed. Not only is the truth about her background revealed, but she is also caught having an affair with her producer, ruining her marriage. In the cutthroat world of social media celebrity, who has it out for Sunshine? Now that her world has been destroyed, can Sunshine rise from the rubble? 

LIKE- I liked Dave's snappy writing and colorful characters. I liked that the plot wasn't completely predictable; for example, Sunshine's life is complicated and the complications do not have simple resolutions. Hello, Sunshine has a strong message regarding social media and will give readers pause with regard to their own uses for social media. A few times, there is mention of characters taking posed, perfected shots for Instagram. These are pictures that don't truly reflect their reality with accompanied falsified hashtags. Maybe I'm jaded, but I think most people engage in this behavior to an extent. Reading Hello, Sunshine has made think before I post. Am I reflecting the real me?

Sunshine's life when she returns to Montauk and works for a high-end restaurant is entertaining. I loved the behind-the-scenes look at the back house of a fine dining restaurant. Chef Z is a fabulous crank!

DISLIKE-  There was a lot of plot crammed into the story making it feel rushed. For example, the start of the novel was a flurry of characters, the employees in Sunshine's world, and it was on onslaught that was a struggle to track. I wish there had been more development between Sunshine and her niece, Sammy. I loved their growing relationship. 

RECOMMEND- Yes. Hello, Sunshine is the epitome of a chick-lit/beach read. I'm not sure that I ever understood the concept of this until having my step-kids visit for the summer. The distraction of reading with kids around, makes me gravitate to novels like Hello, Sunshine. I'm not saying that Dave's novel is lacking depth, only that it is written in a style that is easy to digest in small chunks and doesn't require a quiet reading space. I'd definitely recommend Hello, Sunshine as a vacation read and I look forward to reading more of Dave's novels.

This was a quick, enjoyable read! I was not sure if I would end up enjoying this book based on the first 30% or so because of the characters and the choices made, but I'm really glad I kept reading. The last half went quickly, and I was surprised where the author took this. I enjoy books where I get some thoughts to chew on in the end, and I think this book did that nicely while staying totally readable and fun. This was a great summer read!

Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Although this is not my typical genre, I really enjoyed reading about Sunshine and her husband Danny, her sister Rain, and niece Sammy. When someone hacks Sunshine's social media accounts, she loses her job, marriage, and home in one day. She goes home to her estranged sister, ekes out a small living, and tries to find herself along the way. The characters are well-developed and I enjoyed the plot, including the uncertainty at the end. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to be an early reader in exchange for my fair and honest review.

Sunshine is the result of our social media engineered life. She has become a food and lifestyle guru via all the platforms, she's "internet famous". She's about to get her own TV show, ala Rachael Ray, and everything seems to be going well - except her personal life. She can barely be bothered to go to her own birthday party - or to look up from her phone at her husband.

But she does go to her own birthday party and the anonymous texts begin - threatening to expose her for the fraud that she is. Sunshine doesn't know how to cook, her recipes all come from her partner's wife and she's been lying to the world.

That night her life falls apart as the anonymous source begins to spill all of her secrets on Twitter. It's a bitter downfall via the medium that built her up.

Thus begins Sunshine's fall from grace, ending with her living on her sister's couch, a sister who doesn't like her very much, friendless, husbandless and jobless.

At this point there's nowhere to go but up, but even that isn't easy for her. She is face to face with the fact that people don't seem to like her very much in person, a hard pill to swallow for someone who thought she was loved by so many strangers. And through her story, we find out she hasn't really been someone to love, disloyal to her husband and family and drinking her own koolaid.

At times this made it hard to root for her - she kind of got what she deserved. It was a somewhat melancholy read because there was no storybook ending, but definitely worth reading.

Current Goodreads Rating 3.93

This is another fun summer read from Laura Dave. Enjoy this tale of logical consequences or what happens when you keep starching the truth and it breaks! Can Sunshine recover her "true" self instead of the "reality media" creation? A perfect fit for your beach bag!

This sure was a surprising book for a chick lit. I haven't read many lately, but I always enjoy reading some especially during summer. They are just easy, fun reads. But this one was actually a bit deeper than any of the ones I've read so far.

I read this book in two stands. I just couldn't make myself stop. I wanted to know what was happening next. And it was so surprisingly worth it!

Sunshine is a culinary star. She has everything she ever wanted: a husband, a career and a house in the best place she could find. Until everything ends, when she is hacked and exposed. Sunshine is the definition of fake. She can't cook, her history is made up, and to top it up, she was unfaithful.

But no matter what, I still cared for her. I thought deep inside she wasn't a bad person. With the exception of being unfaithful, all the rest didn't make me look bad at her. And even tho she had millions of fans and persons all around her, she was terribly lonely. She just didn't know it. This book is full of fake people, which is quite common since we are talking about the internet world (Not everybody on the internet is fake, obviously, but it's undeniable that there are some). But there are some beautiful ones too. And I loved to see Sunshine change and find her true self.

I really loved some characters in this book. They were unexpected and interesting. Especially little Sammy, her sister's daughter. She was just precious!

I really liked the writing and I couldn't get enough of this book. Plus, it's quite an unpredictable book, which is not so common with chick-lit. It has some astonishing surprises and twists. This was a beautiful, cute book and I would definitely recommend it if you're looking for an easy fast read yet surprising.

Review will be posted on 7/13/17
Sunshine Mackenzie is a well-known chef with best selling cookbooks and millions of adoring fans. This all changes when her social media accounts get hacked and some of her deepest, darkest secrets get exposed. Cue her world coming crumbling down and even her personal life is in pieces once her husband finds out some of her secrets that she has been keeping from him. Her fans are upset as even who she claims to be isn't accurate at all; essentially, she is a fraud. Where do you go when you have lost everything? Well, Sunshine heads back home to Montauk and right back to her estranged sister. But Sunshine refuses to be down for too long and picks herself up by the bootstraps. Laura Dave's Hello, Sunshine is a delightful beach read that has all the fluff you would want in a beach read, but it also examines bigger things like life in a digital age.

Sunshine is a character that although I disagreed with, I still cared about her in Hello, Sunshine. I mean she is a bit of a hot mess by the time her world comes crashing down and although she lied and took part in despicable things, I still was, somehow, rooting for her. I think that is a testament to Dave's writing. She made me care about Sunshine and I wanted to see her learn from her mistakes and rise from her ashes.

Sunshine is also a complex character in Hello, Sunshine. When she returns to her childhood home, not only has she hit rock bottom, but she has to confront the shaky relationship she has with her sister and in turn spend time with her niece. I liked this aspect of Hello, Sunshine and the fact that Sunshine came home to sort of find herself again. And where better to do that than at the Hamptons? The setting of Montauk really added to beach-read appeal of this novel.

More importantly, I liked that Dave has readers examine what it means to live an authentic life, especially when it comes to social media. So often the way things appear on the Internet are contrary to real life and I think Hello, Sunshine is a nice reminder of this.

If you like a good beach read that has a nice setting along with the idea of finding yourself again and restarting your life, you'll appreciate Hello, Sunshine. It's definitely a fun book to throw in your beach bag this summer.

Sunshine Mackenzie is a celebrity chef living in New York City, with her own YouTube channel and a new show on the Food Network coming out soon. She's originally from Georgia and grew up a farmers daughter, creating recipes with farm to table ingredients and down home charm. After her husband starting taping her as she cooked and posting the videos on YouTube, her star took off and she's been charming viewers ever since.

Some of the above is true - but most of it is not. Sunshine has been living a lie and in the first chapter of this book, her picture perfect life comes crashing down around her. She's left with no job, no money, and no husband, and forced to turn to her estranged sister on Long Island. As she tries to pick up the pieces, she has to figure out what is true and what she wants out of life.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did. The descriptions and reviews I read made Sunshine's character seem vapid and ditsy. But that wasn't the case at all. She was actually really easy to relate to, particularly in the way she dealt with social media and her image. Laura Dave does a great job of discussing how we represent ourselves online, and how that perfect Facebook or Instagram post is most often not an example of what is really going on in our lives. The book was fun and funny, but not fluff. The plot moved quickly and you could easily finish the book in a day at the beach. I plan on checking out Dave's other books and adding them to my TBR.

Engrossing and addictive, HELLO, SUNSHINE was a complete page-turner for me. I fell into the story immediately and just needed to find out how Sunshine got where she was and what would happen next. Dave used the perfect tactics to keep readers guessing and the food descriptions are absolutely delicious. I really really loved this book all the way up until the big twist toward the end, and then sank back in disappointment at the reveal. The writing remained solid, but I just wish it all hadn't wrapped up so quickly - I thought I was just getting into the meat of things and I looked at my progress on the ebook and it said I only had 38 minutes left! My issues, however, are only with the way the story turned out, not at all with the author's writing - I can't wait to read more of her work!

I could not put down this fabulous book by Laura Dave. My favorite of hers, hands down. Thank you, Netgalley!!

I don't really know how to rate this book because it was such a non entity. I finished it a few days ago and I've already forgotten the names of most of the characters. At one point the titular Sunshine says this isn't the typical story where the heroine goes back to their home town and find themselves, but it absolutely is. This story has been told before by better authors, this book brings nothing new to the table.

They say you can’t judge a book by the cover, but I totally did with this one! I went into the story blind, but I was hooked from the first chapter. Sunshine Mackenzie has it all - a YouTube cooking show, numerous #1 bestselling cookbooks, and a devoted husband. But when she gets hacked on social media, it all comes crashing down around her. She retreats to her childhood home with her tail between her legs. But don’t give up on Sunshine just yet - she rises from the ashes stronger than ever! This is the perfect summer beach read, and just like Sunshine, this book as it all: lies and truth, love and betrayal, transgressions and redemption. The characters are likable (and, in some cases, totally dislikable), and the writing is quick and witty. At times, I even found myself laughing out loud at some of the snarkiness - something I never do! To say I enjoyed this book would be an understatement. If you’re looking for something light and easy - with some topics that will leave you questioning your personal feelings (**ahem, the pros and cons of social media**), this is the book for you! (Release date: July 11, 2017) Thanks to @NetGalley for the digital review copy - all opinions are my own!

Sunshine had it all: career as a culinary star, married for 14 years, beautiful loft, etc, until she is hacked on the night of her 35th birthday and loses it all. From here, Sunshine needs to find out who has ruined her life and why, who she herself is, and what she wants to do now. The book is a bit mystery, a bit self-discovery, a bit romance, and a lot of enjoyable women’s fiction. Written in the first person, Sunshine isn’t self-indulgent but at the beginning she is the typical oblivious social media centric person. Thankfully, throughout the book, a strong and thoughtful Sunshine emerges.

Last year, I stumbled upon the novel Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave, and it quickly fell into my stack of favorites for the year. I recommended it to all my friends – and even bought copies as gifts. So, it should come as no surprise that I was thrilled when I heard Laura Dave had a new novel coming out this summer or that I read it as soon as I had the opportunity.
Usually, when you love a book so much, the next one does not live up to your hopes for it. This was not the case for Hello, Sunshine. This book is such an enjoyable read. It is both perfect for these summer days and thought-provoking. I like my summer reads to be fun and meaningful. Not too much fluff, but not too heavy. Hello, Sunshine fits this description entirely.

The novel focuses on Sunshine – a celebrity cook on her way to a new Food Network show who lets you know in the first few pages that she is a crappy person who has made a series of terrible self-serving choices. Her honesty in the first chapter is almost painful when readers learn that the reason she is a not-so-great person is because her entire cooking empire is built on a lie. A hacker manages to ruin her career, reputation, friendships, and marriage in a single day by exposing her lies.

Yet, somehow even knowing she herself said she is not a good person and knowing the things she did, I still rooted for her. There was something genuine about this “liar.” More so, she really suffers as a result of the hack. It is so easy to get caught up in celebrity brouhaha and wish to see someone “get what they deserve,” but it is something else entirely to read about it. For instance, as a reader, I did begin to empathize with Sunshine. I did not agree with her choices, but I understood why she felt she had made them. Laura Dave’s does a fantastic job of developing realistic characters.

Additionally, while the plot is entertaining and frothy, the book also brings up a lot to consider about our true lives and the lives we curate for social media. Does social media make it normal to lie or curate a life that is not really your own? Kudos to Laura Dave for crafting an entertaining summer beach read that is also fit for book club discussions.