“Everything you can do on a phone you can do better without a phone. Except the self-numbing and avoidance. Just skip those.”
What Kelly Says:
This might be my weirdest book, but I still love it. Paige is this sedentary, solitary thirty something woman living in Silicon Valley working for a sort of cross between Insta and TikTok and Facebook, and she’s got no life. She also suffers from pretty rotten panic attacks, and mental health challenges run in her family. Her half sister Jessica, for example, is struggling with thoughts of hurting herself.
Mia on the other hand is a superstar influencer with five hundred thousand followers watching everything she does and buying everything she shows. But she has no more real joy in her life than Jessica or Paige. To live a photo-worthy life means staging and faking everything she does.
Inspired by a cute guy with a big heart and no interest in social media, Mia throws her phone over a cliff, creating an influencer vacuum that Paige and Jessica conspire to fill on the sly. Also: chickens and dogs.
The Official Blurb:
From the bestselling author of The Overdue Life of Amy Byler comes a fresh, funny, and thoughtful story about going off the grid in order to truly live.
As one of the most popular influencers on social media, Mia Bell has lived her life online for years. With her celebrity dog and gorgeous fiancé, she is planning the ultimate virtual wedding―expensive, elaborate, and entirely paid for by sponsors. But off-camera, her world is far from picture perfect. After being jilted by her fiancé and faking her nuptials to please her sponsors, Mia finally has had enough. She heaves her phone off a cliff, ready to live―and maybe find love―offline for a change.
Mia’s sudden absence doesn’t go unnoticed, especially by techie loner Paige Miller, who hacks Mia’s account and begins impersonating the internet celebrity. Paige has her reasons. Her half sister, Jessica, idolizes Mia and desperately needs something to believe in. If taking over Mia’s online persona is Paige’s only means of connecting to her sister, so be it.
What the reviewers say:
“Witty, lively, and au courant, The Bright Side of Going Dark will make readers think twice about refreshing Instagram for the tenth time today.”
—Booklist (starred review)
Creating a like-worthy life is more fun than Paige expected. But when she grows too bold and is caught in the act, a fiasco ensues that could forever change Mia, Paige, and the people who love them. Because somewhere amid the chaos is an invaluable lesson―one that only real life can teach.
Character Secrets
Mia says she has no secrets anymore. As her creator, I can tell you that’s not entirely true. It’s just that her secrets are now all very boring.
Paige is a secret author of Miss Marple fan fiction. Lots of it.
Jessica is seeing someone wonderful. She’s not ready to spill details yet, but it feels like this might be The One.
About the Cover
I’m staring at a jumbo version that my publisher Lake Union sent to me to commemorate a sales milestone right now, and though I’m very glad that this (so far) strangest book of mine has found so many readers, I have to say, I don’t entirely “get” the cover for this one. I mean, I get it. It’s highly literal. It has one lady in a bright shirt, with no phone. Two other ladies are on their phones and one of them also has a dog. That’s the book’s plot. That said, the tone of the story doesn’t exactly match the cover. Understandably the publisher didn’t want to package this as a story about mental health, (ok, though, what book isn’t about mental health in some way or another) and I’m not sure how they would have visually represented digital addiction in any other dynamic way. But I would have loved to see just a bit of the neurological and physical diversity of the characters reflected.
THE Bright side of going dark is for fans of…
Upload (Amazon Prime)
Reusable silicone straws
YouTube’s Yoga with Adriene (I love you, Adriene)
Singing Katy Perry songs loudly in the shower
Dogs
Summertime in the mountains
WALL-E
