Sunny Song's Big Summer Goals:
1) Make Rafael Kim my boyfriend (finally!)
2) Hit 100K followers (almost there…)
3) Have the best last summer of high school ever
Not on Sunny's list: accidentally filming a PG-13 cooking video that goes viral (#browniegate). Extremely not on her list: being shipped off to a digital detox farm camp in Iowa (IOWA??) for a whole month. She's traded in her WiFi connection for a butter churn, and if she wants any shot at growing her social media platform this summer, she'll need to find a way back online.
But between some unexpected friendships and an alarmingly cute farm boy, Sunny might be surprised by the connections she makes when she's forced to disconnect.
This is the third of Suzanne's books I've read, and I think I've got her pegged now. (That sounds awful, I don't mean it to.) These are fun but slightly frothy romcoms featuring Korean-Americans and often some kind of online activity. I always love reading about influencers and thisd book didn't disappoint.
An example of froth; I don't know anything about the wannabe boyfriend, Rafael Kim, except that Sunny has a crush on him. He barely features and he's not talked about, because his role is Wrong One First; he doesn't need a personality, he just needs to be different from Right One Last. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but a couple of scenes in school would have meant I cared more about whether Sunny would get him or not.
Everything is like that. I enjoyed the read, please don't get me wrong, but it all could have done with a little more depth. Time at the camp seemed to leap by very quickly in odd chunks - Sunny arrived, then it was three days later, then it was two weeks, then three, then home time - and it just felt strange. I really enjoyed all the things that were happening, and I guess I want more of them. Even the 'issues' - an instance of racism against Sunny, and the central issue of whether 'tech' is bad - were skimmed over very lightly. The online comunity can be a wonderful, accepting place, and it's a shame we didn't see more of that; we only heard about three influencers despite the wealth of other online experiences in the camp. Let's hear more about the esports guy, or the online comedian!
If you go into this expecting a fun, light teenage romcom, you'll really enjoy it and even laugh out loud at spots. If you think you're getting an indepth discussion, or learning how to deal with your teenager, you'll be disappointed. But that's ok. Sometimes you just need something light and fun, and that's exactly this book.
Sunny Song will Never be Famous publishes on the 1st June, 2021. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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