![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ShineShineShine.jpg?resize=200%2C300&ssl=1\")
By Lydia Netzer\nSt. Martin\u2019s Press, ISBN: 978-1250007070
\nPaperback, \u00a92012, 320 pages<\/p>\n
By Lydia Netzer
\nSt. Martin\u2019s Press, ISBN: 978-1250007070
\nPaperback, \u00a92012, 320 pages<\/p>\n
Sunny is the social anchor of her neighborhood, coordinating craft shows and support groups, serving as the reliable and rock-steady block mom everyone turns to in a crisis. Maxon, her husband, is a genius engineer who is on his way to the moon to build robots that can then build a lunar colony. He adores Sunny, would do anything she asks. She has worked hard to create the perfect home, to be the perfect mother, the perfect wife. With an autistic son and a daughter on the way, she looks like a pillar of strength, riding out Maxon\u2019s lengthy absence with the grace and charm her friends and neighbors have come to expect.<\/p>\n
From the outside, her life looks flawless. From the inside, Sunny can see cracks in her facade. Then something in the Universe shifts. A fender-bender forces Sunny to own the truth of who she really is. A random accident hangs Maxon\u2019s survival on a thread. Suddenly, Sunny\u2019s world tilts at crazy angles. All her careful plans begin to fall apart, and she must re-learn what it means to be an average woman.<\/p>\n
Shine Shine Shine <\/em>is constructed similar to Sunny\u2019s disguise. At first we see only the perfect face she shows the world. There was something off\u2014I couldn\u2019t put my finger on exactly what\u2014about her story from the start, which made me want to know more. Netzer\u2019s excellent pacing fleshes out the two main characters bit by bit, dealing tiny tidbits of information to build, slowly, a more complete picture of Sunny\u2019s and Maxon\u2019s backgrounds. With every revelation, I became more intrigued by the characters and the life they\u2019d built together despite all their odds. It\u2019s the tale of two unique individuals, surely, but it\u2019s also a love story with a trace of science fiction at its core.<\/p>\n The novel\u2019s intricacy hooked me from the start. The interrelationships between the characters kept me turning the pages. Every scene promised new breadcrumbs, and I ate them up one by one. I think it took me only a week to read the book\u2014on lunchbreaks, on the treadmill at the gym, in-between other tasks, in bed at night long after I should have been sleeping. It was hard to put down, and I was sorry to finish the last page. I do feel like it ended too soon; some things were left hanging that I would have liked to see resolved, but then not every story needs a tidy denouement, does it? That\u2019s Life. That\u2019s fiction. That\u2019s fact.<\/p>\n I really liked that the book is set in Norfolk, Virginia, my own town. While a lot goes on here, I suspect Norfolk isn\u2019t exactly what most people would consider an exotic setting for a fictional tale. In fact, though, it\u2019s a perfect setting for Sunny\u2019s story. With Maxon\u2019s involvement in a space mission, and both NASA and Langley nearby, Netzer\u2019s choice of locale makes sense. Add to that the fact that Netzer also lives in Norfolk and knows the streets and neighborhoods and waterways as only a local can, and her imagery and scene descriptions take on a realistic authenticity that leaps off the page, making the location almost a character in its own right.<\/p>\n There are a number of reasons why I loved this book. I\u2019ll name two. First, I loved the reality, the frailty of the characters. I could understand why Sunny would want a normal life. I understood how Maxon came to be who he was. I hung on every social precipice with Maxon and felt Sunny\u2019s embarrassment at being exposed. Second, I loved the way Netzer led an eager me through the story to the very end by her expert salting of the current timeline with remembrances and bits of history. Even at the end, characters reveal truths about themselves that I never suspected.<\/p>\n The world of contemporary fiction holds a veritable treasure of exceptional books, so many that worthwhile novels can easily escape our notice. I usually search for new titles under the genre of science fiction or fantasy, so chances are I might have missed this particular gem if not for one fortunate detail. Netzer teaches classes at The Muse in Norfolk, two of which I\u2019ve had the good fortune to experience. She\u2019s an intelligent, quirky woman, an engaging quality which sparkles through in her work. I could see her behind every word and, for me, that made it an even more interesting read. But don\u2019t think for a minute that I am pushing her book simply because I know the author. Shine Shine Shine <\/em>was a New York Times Notable Book for 2012, an Amazon Spotlight Book of the Month, a Target Book Club Pick, and if that wasn\u2019t enough, it was shortlisted for the LA Times Book Prize in Fiction. Sunny and Maxon\u2019s story will draw you in and hold you spellbound through to the last page. An excellent read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Lydia Netzer St. Martin\u2019s Press, ISBN: 978-1250007070 Paperback, \u00a92012, 320 pages Sunny is the social anchor of her neighborhood, coordinating craft shows and support groups, serving as the reliable and rock-steady block mom everyone turns to in a crisis. Maxon, her husband, is a genius engineer who is on his way to the moon…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8n0kX-a3","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":594,"url":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/2018\/02\/12\/a-god-in-ruins\/","url_meta":{"origin":623,"position":0},"title":"A God In Ruins","author":"DremaDeoraich","date":"February 12, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"By Kate Atkinson Back Bay Books, ISBN: 978-0316176507 Paperback, \u00a92016, 480 pages Ex-bomber pilot Teddy, a.k.a. 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