Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous is a tender and thoughtful YA about social media and connection. It's about family, romance, expectations, and friendship. It's rare that I relate so fully with a main character, but I saw so much of myself in Sunny. In the ways she has a goal, in her planning and her drive. Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous is fast paced and Park delivers a story that will sweep you away. At the same time, what resonated with me while reading was this Influencer culture.

The ways it can separate us from a feeling of self. The boundaries between the public persona we have, and the one underneath it all with vulnerabilities, fears, and mistakes. As someone who reviews books, as you can tell, I think a lot about where this line lies in my own life. What do we choose to share with the world? Does social media enhance or distract from connection? I'm not sure if Park meant to make me so thoughtful as Sunny grapples with questions about whether we let social media define us.

DNF at 58%. I loved the premise of Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous, but unfortunately the pacing was very slow and the story failed to ever grab my attention. I appreciated the Asian rep, but never felt connected to Sunny or any of the other characters (this could definitely be a case of "it's me not you"). I have decided to put the book down for now.

I found myself hooked on this book and finishing it in a day. Sunny Song is an incredibly relatable teenager who is just trying to make a name for herself on social media, ever since her mother posted a video of her dancing as a child that went viral. However, when her family decides that she has an addiction paired with a fumbled incident live-streamed to the world, she gets sent off to digital detox camp.

I really appreciated that there were legitimate critiques about technology (and the various ways that the various detox campers could be adversely affected) as well as plenty of scenes of how technology could be used in positive ways, and I'm glad that Sunny ended up finding a happy medium between the two.

I also really appreciated that Sunny, as a Korean American, while she understands a bit of spoken Korean that her parents would say to her, wasn't particularly skilled at Korean and felt guilty about it. The emphasis that Sunny has a close connection to her heritage via food was also one that was incredibly relatable.

I also enjoyed how the love interest, while very cute, was remarkably awkward and had an older brother that most people would've preferred to fawn over. The way his relationship built with Sunny was paced nicely, and I appreciated the way they slowly became friends and then more.

A thank you to Sourcebooks Fire and NetGalley for the ARC.

I’m pretty sure everyone has wanted their viral moment. Everyone has done something cool or cringy or memeable that, if it were recorded, you would find your place among the internet stars and join the ranks of that blinking white guy or the kid that says “It’s an avocado!” Maybe you’ll become a massive reaction gif! Who knows!

As frequent as memes change and how quickly viral moments come and go, the chances are better now for anyone to become ~internet~famous~. Honestly, that’s kind of a goal of mine, get super internet famous and just get paid to, like, play video games all day. But, I digress.

Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous by Suzanne Park is essentially about a viral video. While making a pan of brownies for a livestream, Sunny spills something on her shirt. Thinking the stream has been turned off, she takes off her shirt. But, gasp, the stream was still going. Then she goes viral from such an embarrassing faux pas! Twitter is trending with hashtags like #BrowniePorn! What will happen to Sunny?!

(I have to say here that this is an incredibly contrived situation that would never actually go viral IRL and it really took me out of the book for a bit.)

This is the second time Sunny has gone viral, the first being when she was a wee babe and her mom took a picture of her with goggles on and she became #GoggleGirl? I dunno, it didn’t make sense to me, but, given how weird the early internet was, it absolutely could have been a meme. Now that I think about it, it may be a reference to Success Kid, but I couldn’t tell you. Also, if you want to talk about early 2010s internet memes, I’m your guy.

Basically, her parents and principal find out about it. The principal says she will be expelled unless she completes a month long retreat to “detox” from her technology. It’s in a little state called Iowa. Yeah, buddy, Iowa, my homestate, land of corn and apparently internet detox camps. Of course, she is sent to the camp. However, right before she leaves, she is revealed to be one of the candidates to fill a spot in an influencer house, which is one of those things that I just don’t understand because I’m almost 30. The final deadline for submission is during the camp, so Sunny’s manager is taking up the task of posting daily and all that jazz.

Once at the camp, she meets a cute boy and, because it is a YA romance and this is the first boy we have actually met, she falls in love with him. Shenanigans ensue.

Okay, I may seem like I was being a bit of a butt, but I genuinely enjoyed this book. It’s cute and funny and I really liked how they represented Iowa. A lot of books make it out to be a hick state, but Park does a great job of showing that Iowans are (generally) smart and caring people who learn from their mistakes. There was a scene about casual racism towards Asians (which is a horribly rampant issue) and, by the end, it’s rectified in a genuinely good manner.

Now, as much as I enjoyed the book, I hated two specific things about it. 1. It was incredibly preachy in parts. There are a couple scenes where you can tell it’s actually Park talking and not Sunny, especially when it comes to technology use. And 2. The ending. Man, the ending was bad. It actually brought my rating down a whole star. Now, I’m sure that others are going to like the ending and I don’t blame them. There is definitely a message however… interesting it may be.

Sunny Song is a really fun book with some genuinely funny and heartbreaking moments and, if you can get past the preachy “phone bad” parts of the book, it’s a really solid read. 3.5/5, 7/10.

You can pick up Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous by Suzanne Park at your favorite indie bookstore on June 1st, 2021.

Thanks Netgalley for the eARC!

3.5 Stars
This was a cute and lighthearted Contemporary Teen Romance. Sunny Song accidentally tapes herself in a live stream while in her bra and when her parents and principle find out they decide she needs a detox. Sunny is sent to a technology detoxing camp to learn that there is more to life than social media. But what happens when you are planning your future career around social media? You HAVE to spend time on that!
Honestly, trying my hand at "influencing" myself made me instantly connect with Sunny. I have felt the high of trending on social media, as well as the low of feeling stagnant and have completely lost myself in the climb to the top of the social media hierarchies. For this reason I think that bookstagrammers will especially love this book, and if you are a fan of YA contemporaries than even better!
I did find the romance to be a little lacking, simply because the love interest was never fleshed out and I felt like it wasn't completely necessary to the story. But overall I still found it a really cute read that I would recommend.

I really enjoyed Suzanne Park’s unique take on the “camp-to-help” trope! Sunny Song is working hard to be a social media influencer. Her goal: 100,000 followers. She schedules her posts so they don’t interfere with high school, and everything is going very well. Until Sunny’s principal takes notice of her busy online life. Suddenly her parents are brought in. Her phone is on lock down. And no matter how many times Sunny tries to explain that she’s not posting while at school, no one will listen. Her principal’s solution? Digital detox camp. Especially after the (definitely accidental!) PG-13 video Sunny released. Will Sunny make it through a camp that doesn’t allow technology? Suzanne does an amazing job of answering that question!

Suzanne Park has the incredible ability to write unputdownable after unputdownable book. I loved the focus on social media and detoxing from tech, especially in a camp setting. It was punctuated with her signature humor and a homey camp atmosphere. As an avid summer camper from the Midwest, it rang true to my experience (though luckily there wasn't any Side Braid at mine!). Plus now I'll never look at brownies the same way...

*Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the ARC in exchange for my honest review*

Sunny Song will be Never Be Famous tells the story of a girl who needs social media detox. The only way to do that is to ship her to a camp in Iowa for youth's needing an escape from technology. For 30 whole days, Sunny will trade her followers online for farm animals. Sunny is every teenager today when you ask them to set their phone down or turn it off! It is a coming of age story about lifting your eyes up from the screen to see the world in front you.

I truly struggled through this book as it was just simply boring and sometimes repetitive. Sunny acted more like a junior high student than a soon to be senior. Sunny Song will Never Be Famous truly fit the mold of YA contemporary romance, so maybe that was the problem it was to predictable.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for a complimentary copy for an honest review.

Likes:
*I thought this was a fun premise for a story. Youtuber gets sent to technology detox camp to reconnect with life again and learn about what’s important in her life. Sunny isn’t even a big time social media influencer but someone trying to get to that level but her parents thinks whatever she is doing is enough to send her to camp.

*Sunny is a fun character – she’s from L.A. and gets sent to Iowa. For the most part she is bored without all her technology. She makes some friends at camp and even meets a boy who works at the farm. She comes off self-centered because she is very focused on her youtube career but I did like how she stood up for herself when dealing with microagressions on the farm because she is Korean-American.

*Sunny and Theo’s romance is very cute and sweet. The two of them are opposites in every aspect. She’s a city girl, he’s a farm boy. He’s traditional, she’s a risk taker. I liked seeing their relationship grow.

*I did like the message in the story – which is about finding a life with balance. Sunny makes good points about why technology is needed and helpful. I also loved that she stands up to Theo and Ms. Davenport about her choice to become a social media star and she works hard at her craft to try and reach her dreams. I like that she made it clear that going to college isn’t the only way to success these days. I agree and I went to college haha. But Coach, the “counselor” at camp makes good points too about making human connections face to face. I like how she connects with the elderly, it reminds me of the times I volunteered as a teen in nursing homes. So I like how this story shows how connecting online and offline is a good thing.

Random Notes:
Triggers: microagression

*This one is a quick, lighthearted read. It’s light and cute with the romance and nothing that went too deep into the issues.

*Not sure why one of the campers, Wendy, really hated on Sunny. Competition? She just didn’t like her? I’m not sure and it’s not really addressed.

Final Thoughts:
I think we all could be reminded now and then, or everyday, how connecting online and offline can be a great thing when there is a balance between the two. The author conveyed this message very well in the story. I found this book to be an entertaining, quick, lighthearted read with a good message and sweet romance. This one is perfect for teens and young adult readers.

I loved this book! It's effortlessly funny (I laughed so much...I will never think of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" the same way again) and Sunny Song is a main character you root for with your whole heart.

Most importantly, Suzanne Park approaches the topic of our addiction to the internet (this story applies as much to adults as to teens) with grace, humour, and clarity. I'm definitely buying a copy of Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous for my kids so they can read it too.

Look, it doesn't matter what it says on that cover. Sunny Song is famous to me.

Sunny Song is a teenage influencer working her butt off her to grow her social media platform. After school and on weekends she is working hard at getting videos and content together to post and reach that elusive 100k follower benchmark. She schedules all her posts, but the frequency of them has not gone unnoticed. After her LA school expresses concern and a filming mishap goes viral, her parents sign her up for a one month social media detox camp at a farm in Iowa. It's a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, if you ask me, but holds the makings of a great story.

Sunny was a fabulous star for this story with so much depth to her. Given that the premise centers around a young woman absorbed wholly be her phone, social media, and the number of online interactions she has, I was expecting someone rather vapid and gross. Sunny was a very likeable character with a great sense of humour, real teenage concerns and wants, and an overall sweet personality. I definitely laughed a few times at her voice in here, but also understood her dreams and fears. She's an independent woman making her way in this off the rails world the best she can and I could only admire her for it. I will admit that her character took a bit of a hit for me at the end when she had the opportunity to stand up for someone in trouble for something that wasn't theirs, and did not.

Like Sunny, I found this to be a surprising story overall. I didn't quite know where it was going to go, but I enjoyed the themes it leaned into. A young woman choosing her future on her own terms, whether that is going to college or going into business for herself. Making meaningful relationships and how social media can help enhance and benefit those. Even Sunny's identity as a Korean-American, how she chooses to embrace that amongst touches of racism, whether intentional or not. It was nicely thought out and had a great ending. The character growth for Sunny alone was worth the read, and it had me reflecting on my own social media and phone use.

This book was not perfect, though. I found that the writing sometimes went into the minutiae of certain tasks, describing every little movement needed to complete it when it was not necessary. It dragged the story down, especially when that word count could have been used to build out the story more. Even some of the characters could have used some beefing up. The book was far from boring, but I do wish we could have gotten more of the camp activities and the hijinks that came with them. Even the things described on the cover as her summer goals were barely given enough notice.

I really enjoyed this! It's a quick read that's super cute and fun!

After enjoying this author’s first ya book, The Perfect Escape, I was looking forward to her next and am happy I got to read it early!

Sunny just finished her junior year up with a trip to the headmaster’s office with her parents. Parents complaining about her social media presence wasn’t on her bucket list but after going viral from a cooking stream she is on her way to a social media free summer.

What I like about Sunny is that she is a go-getter. She took a viral video from her childhood and ran with it to create her own brand. Even though social media can be too much (I’ll get to that), it also has it’s good qualities as well and its easy to see why the younger generation uses it to their advantage. She also stands up for herself and calls out racism behavior. I really liked her character and seeing the growth she had in the time she was at the farm.

Obviously the internet/social media can also be a double-edged sword. There are quite a lot of drawbacks and I have seen them firsthand. It isn’t easy to deal with trolls, stats, time consuming, or whatever else it throws at the user. It’s always hard to find balance in a world that is filled with technology. This book has an important message for teens and even adults who struggle as well.

The pacing was good and kept me engaged throughout. I can’t say there was ever a dull moment as plot twists did pop up and I just wanted to know what would happen next on this farm. I loved the elderly coming and Sunny using her skills to help them out. There were a lot of funny moments.

My only complaint would be the romance. I’m still not sure why her crush was necessary as it felt like it could have been left out and nothing would have changed. The relationship she found herself in was cute but also felt rushed. I could look past its flaws for the most part because I did like the rest of the book. I will also say that a lot of the minor characters were very one-dimensional but again, I liked the rest of the book so I kind of looked past it.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read. I think it has a great message and Sunny is a great character to read about.

Well, this is my second book of the same author in two weeks and as far as I can see she’s meticulous writer who can write in both realistic adult and young adult genres so well.

This book has interesting plot about sending a popular Youtuber to social media and phone detox program which could also be great concept for reality tv series and reinvention of Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie’s Simple Life show !

Sunny Song is a typical teenage girl who is glued to her phone and obsessed how much daily likes she gets on social media. Having a dreamy summer holiday, making Rafael Kim fall hard for her and reaching 100K followers were her main plans but when a home cooking video turns into PG-13 video which goes viral and traps her into the worst version nightmare, she is advised to be sent on social media detox camp where she can trade WiFi connection for butter churn.

But surprisingly this camp life doesn’t seem like her personal hell! She has a crush on camp director’s boy. She already has a cool friend and worst nemesis and her limited wifi connection is still enough for her joining the competition she holds as a big secret!

Overall: it’s solid, easy, enjoyable read! I found Sunny a little irritating because of not so shinny and so self absorbed characterization. She was real definition of spoiled brat, self centered teenager. Thankfully nearly end of the book, her character became more mature and tolerable.

I’m giving three this is not my favorite book of the author but it’s definitely above the average, interesting, enjoyable reading stars!

So many thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

Sunny Song has a great YouTube following. The same day she gets scolded by her headmaster, she has an unfortunate live on her feed that ends up going viral. Word gets back to her headmaster and she gets shipped off to Iowa to be on a social media detox for the summer. This LA girl is in for a real surprise being on a farm and not having access to the internet.

I think this addresses the topic of pressure on social media and how easy it can be to become obsessed with followers, likes, etc. It sets a good example on how we all need to take a break from social media and get back to our roots and remember what is most important to us. I read this in a day. I really enjoyed this one.

Thank you Net Galley for the eArc in exchange for an honest Review.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire and Netgalley for the free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I've been reading a lot of YA lately because that seems to be the only thing that can hold my attention. After ready the synopsis, I had high hopes for Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous, but the book turned out to be just average to me.

While the idea of a teenage social media influencer being forced to go a social media detox camp in the middle of nowhere seems promising, the execution was just all right. I tend to find myself either relating to or attached to YA characters, especially POC ones, but I didn't feel that way with Sunny or any of the other characters in the book. Maybe it's because I'm a good decade older than and didn't go to high school during the time of social media influencers, but oh well.

Overall, it wasn't a bad book, just not a great one. I probably won't be recommending this book to many people unless they specifically ask for a book about influencers/social media.

Every now and then I just need to read something light and fun, and Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous was just that for me. A fun and light book to break the tension between heavier stories and to just cheer me up a bit.

It lived up to my expectations and made me laugh and feel happy. Especially Theo was a big favourite for me.

Unfortunately the story and its outcome were rather predictable. I wished there had been a bit more surprise to it instead of a completely cookie cutter YA contemporary romance.

This was a light and funny romance perfect for the summer. Sunny has been so busy building her online persona that she doesn't know who she really is offline. Being forced to unplug makes her do a little soul searching. It also leads to a lot of attempts to get around the rules. She is definitely clever. The romance is a sweet one too.

I'm trying to find one thing about Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous I genuinely liked and I can't.
Almost all the characters besides our heroine were flat and underdeveloped, while she, even though not necessarily unlikable, sounded as if she were 13. The voice was completely off and I also found myself bored by being inside her head. There was just too much pointless rambling going on.
And when it comes to the romance, it felt very juvenile and unbelievable. Couldn't care less about what happened to the lovebirds in the end.
The only thing I actually cared about was finding out why the main mean girl hated our MC and the writer never really explained it.

The writing is solid, the humor is good, and the characters seem relatively realistic. My interest flagged, however, due to the focus on social media and the emphasis on being "an influencer." I think I might just be too old (fashioned?) for this book. I love the internet and social media, but mostly because it lets me stay in contact with friends who are far away. Now if Sunny had been sent to detox camp for playing too much WoW, that might have been more my speed!

I received a free copy from NetGalley but all opinions are my own.
The book is pretty typical for a YA novel but there were some unique aspects of the plot that I appreciated.

When I first started reading the book the main character really irritated me, because they were such a teenager. The self-centeredness and conviction of being right was a bit unbearable, probably because I teach teenagers and this behavior is something I see daily. But by the end of the novel, Sunny (the main character) had some character development and started to be more aware of the fact that there are different perspectives in the world and it is not always so black and white.

As an adult it was hard to get invested in the story at first but I can see how appealing this book can be for teenagers. The story itself is interesting so I stuck around but for a teenager I think the depiction of Sunny is pretty accurate so they may relate to her from the beginning. As a highschool teacher I recommend this book for high schoolers but as an adult that occasionally reads YA I would say you might not connect with this book.