Hello, Sunshine

By: Laura Dave

Narrated by: Joy Osmanski

FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME AND THE NIGHT WE LOST HIM

Best Books of Summer Selection by People, Elle, Redbook, Domino Magazine, Us Weekly, PopSugar, PureWow, InStyle, W Magazine, Harpers Bazaar, Southern Living, Arizona Republic, and Tallahassee Democrat
Epicurious Best Foodie Reads Selection
Library Reads Pick

“A clever beach bag must-have” (People) from Laura Dave—the author of the “addictive” (Us Weekly) and critically acclaimed bestseller Eight Hundred Grapes—“a smart, fun read about trying to live an authentic life in the age of social media overload” (PopSugar).

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

When Sunshine’s secrets are revealed, her fall from grace is catastrophic. She loses her 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.

“A delightfully addictive page-turner” (WMagazine.com) that takes place in a world where celebrity is a careful construct, Hello, Sunshine is “wickedly funny and gorgeously entertaining…there is no chance you won’t consume this golden summer read in one sitting” (Redbook.com).

Easy beach read

Good story, fast-paced, kept my interest. I listened to this book via Audible on way to work. I’ve recently rediscovered Dave, listening to her latest before choosing this title. She doesn’t disappoint!

Review

I wish it would have had closure and more final. It just seemed choppy and incomplete.

Sunshine

This book for me was interesting. It does a pretty good job of bringing self awareness of the main character (Sunshine) and how social media distorts ourselves to ourselves. How fudging a bit here and there starts to become true to ourselves when it truly isn’t ourself. I know that is a confusing statement but so is how social
Media has distorted us! How many followers do I have….did they like my post….

Characters to Hate and Not Much Sunshine

Difficult to stick with a book featuring phony, chronic liars without much of a moral compass, doing hateful things to each other. The perfirmance was the only really goid thing about the book.

It left me wanting.

It left me wanting an ending instead of uncertainty, but it left you where life tends to leave us all on uncertain terms.

Cute, but just okay.

I didn’t care for the presenter’s male voices at all. The story was cute
but predictable.

Not sure why

Was it to soap opera for me. But couldn't finish.
I don't care about her demise. Maybe bc I know the main character is goingf downhill I didn't want to take the ride.

Joy Osmanski was really good.

As good as Joy Osmanski was, she could not help the light weight story. The characters we not well fleshed out. Maybe a bit more back story would have helped.

A compelling look into lies and truths

Hello Sunshine. My fourth endeavour on the quest to read through Laura Dave’s books… a quest I’m not sure why I’ve continued, when so far I’ve felt her books were ok but not great (The Last Thing He Told Me), infuriatingly bad (London is the Best City in America), and irritating but with a semi-satisfying ending (800 Grapes). Still, there is something about Dave’s character work that makes me want to find that one piece from her that I’ll love… and so I vowed continue, until I’ve finished everything she has out there. Perhaps that makes me a terrible reader, but I’ve never been good at leaving a project unfinished. So here we are, at Hello Sunshine. Here I am, more than halfway through this quest. Mild spoilers ahead.

Hello Sunshine was much, much better than London or 800 Grapes. Much better. I’m fairly certain this is because it was Dave’s sixth release – making it her second-latest book (Last Thing is the most recent). She’s more developed as a writer here than she was for either London or 800 Grapes, and it shows. Is she still sometimes tempted to repeat herself (both within books and book to book)? Yes. Is she sometimes too prone to telling over showing? Yes. But both these flaws are less pronounced here than they are in her earlier works.

Even better? The protagonist is not horrible. Well, okay – she is horrible. That’s actually her most defining characteristic when the book takes off. But, she acknowledges that she’s horrible (first facially, and eventually for real) and the reader is clearly not supposed to feel she isn’t. The story is, in many ways, about her being a horrible, terrible person and learning what it means to come to terms with that. She’s a fraud who has built a career on lies – at first not realising just how far it would go, but always with the knowledge that it was a lie. After a decade, that web she’s woven – and which has been woven for her by others – is crumbling around her: the bill has come due. She must face that everyone thinks she’s a terrible person, that she has become a terrible person, and that perhaps it doesn’t really matter who blew up her life, because ultimately, it was she who made it possible. (Side note – this was good that it didn’t really matter to me, because while it shocks Sunny when she finally figures it out, I guessed this twist from Chapter 1. I like to think – though perhaps its giving Dave extra credit – that the audience was meant to realise this quickly, and that it was part of Sunny’s story that it took her so long to see it.)

So why do I say she’s not horrible? Because she isn’t horrible to read – something that I think early Dave books really struggle to deliver on. We know we’re in the head of a jerk, but we’re meant to. And we get to watch her go through actual character development – something that was glaringly absent from London and 800 Grapes, and not exactly centre-stage in the newly released Last Thing. And the result? Despite my scruples, my past disappointment and my trepidation, I actually really, really enjoyed this read.

Sunny was delightful, even for all her flaws. Rain, her older sister who has never left Montauk, much to Sunny’s frustration, was a little underdeveloped… but what we got of her was interesting and added to the story. Her daughter, little Sammy, was perhaps the best character in the book. Even Sunny’s various bosses (old life and new), Ethan (the local fisherman who could have been a love interest but who Dave shockingly, and perfectly, does not turn into one), and her faux foe are good characters in this book. And then there’s Danny – another good character, though also a terrible person in his own way.

Like The Last Thing, one of the things I liked best about this book was the ending – it’s not perfect, it’s not neat, and the reader is left to decide for themselves exactly how Sunny’s future turns out. But for Sunny, it’s a start.

Overall, a solid effort, and my favourite of Dave’s thus far.

enjoyable book.

I enjoyed following Sunshine through her struggles as her life unravelled. She learned a lot about herself and honesty. The conclusion of the book left room for speculation rather than a neat conclusion which was more satisfying. Narrator did a wonderful job of bringing the characters to life.