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Release date: July 11, 2017

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Genre: Women’s Fiction 

Blurb: 

Sunshine Mackenzie has it all…until her secrets come to light.

Sunshine Mackenzie is living the dream—she’s a culinary star with millions of fans, a line of #1 bestselling cookbooks, and a devoted husband happy to support her every endeavor.

And then she gets hacked.

When Sunshine’s secrets are revealed, her fall from grace is catastrophic. She loses the husband, her show, the fans, and her apartment. She’s forced to return to the childhood home—and the estranged sister—she’s tried hard to forget. But what Sunshine does amid the ashes of her own destruction may well save her life.

In a world where celebrity is a careful construct, Hello, Sunshine is a compelling, funny, and evocative novel about what it means to live an authentic life in an inauthentic age. 

Review: 

I have another book to add to your vacation reading list, this would be absolutely perfect as it’s light, but has plenty of drama, a juicy scandal and a heroine who is perfectly flawed and wholly relatable. 

Sunshine has the type of life people only dream of, she has a huge following across social media, a best selling series of cookbooks, an amazing husband and a dream apartment in NYC. It’s a total dream, especially as she can’t cook, like at all and the whole empire she’s crafted? Faker than a three dollar bill. The premise for this hooked me as the whole idea of the social media age we’re currently living in just fascinates me. We all follow people who seem to have the perfect life, but how can we really know that their lives are so fantastic based on some pictures and heavily edited videos? Sunshine herself probably shouldn’t have been very likable, but I really did enjoy her. She’s finally at a point in her career where she’s forced to be honest and I found her candidness refreshing. 

This was a timely read as the entire world has never been more obsessed with social media and the stars born from it than it is today. We are a culture consumed by it and the social commentary Dave makes on this subject through Sunshine’s downfall was surprisingly insightful for such a lighthearted read. It wasn’t in your face or obnoxious, just gives you something to ponder. It was also really witty and endearing and a total one sitting type of read as it comes in at under 250 pages. Ultimately it is a story of redemption but not in a contrived, cheesy way, nothing is wrapped up neatly in the end and doing this felt very genuine, I appreciated that. 

Overall rating: 4/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.