Kelly Harms - The Bright Side of Going Dark

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.
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.

Comment: One more book I cannot remember why I added to the TBR. Now that I've read it, I can see it combines some subjects I like, such as characters who need to improve their life somehow, some hints of romance and some mental health content that needs to be addressed for characters to go on improving.

Mia bell is a young woman who reached stardom in the social platform Pictey with posts about herself and her three legged dog she rescued. But what started as a genuine desire to share things about life and yoga and mindfulness quickly turned into sponsored content that millions see. Mia is now locked in this situation and the wedding she planned to post about online is now off. Mia decides to ease up her followers' expectations by pretending she needs space while posting trivial content and then not posting at all.

While this is ongoing, Paige Miller, one of the people who checks the flagged content on Pictey is warned about her younger sister's attempted suicide, which had been hinted at on Mia's feed. Paige believes Mia should have done more, and while investigating she realizes Mia hasn't been posting for a while and quickly decides to impersonate her. At the same time, she also tries to bridge the gap with her sister with whom she hadn't been in close contact either...however, lies never last...

This sounds as if it's a confusing story but it's really not. Apart from obvious lack of ethics here and there, this is a very simple woman's fiction tale about learning to "do the right thing" and enjoy life for what it is. I liked both Paige and Mia in general and I certainly would not want to be in either's shoes but the positions in which they place themselves do offer food for thought.

The story is told by both Paige and Mia in alternated chapters. Each of their voice was very distinctive and they had different issues to deal with, with obviously different takes in life too. I think the author did a good enough job with the portrayal of contemporary issues, of situations the modern people certainly face at some point and while this can feel a little dated in a few decades, right now seems to be very on point. Since this was my first attempt at a story by this author, I was positively surprised, even bearing in mind the elements I wasn't as fond of.

Mia is the first protagonist we meet and she embodies all the cliches we tend to assume about the so-called "influencers". She became famous on a social platform very quickly, at first for genuine reasons and as the number of followers increased, she stopped having time to do and to post about the things that made her famous. Now her feed is all about the sponsored content she can advertise and everything is planned to the smallest detail. Reading about Mia reminded me of a certain celebrity I used to follow here, not on social media but I used to check out that person's blog. The posts were funny and about things I found interesting. Then, slowly, it was more about fashion and suggestions and sponsored brands.... I've stopped reading since it no longer appealed.

Mia here has a sort of similar path and when the story begins, she is at a point where it's all too much and she discovers she wants to go back to simpler things. While the story develops, she goes deeper and deeper into a place where it feels there's no way out but, of course, she eventually "learns" the lesson and with the help of her mother and a few other people she meets, her life does change. This only happens, however, after the big conflict regarding the hacking of her feed...

To explain how Paige comes to hack Mia's page is a bit trickier without spoilers but it has to do with her sister's Jessica attempt of suicide. Let it be said that Paige herself faced mental health issues before and this colors the way she now reacts to know her younger sister facing similar issues. I didn't like how Paige decides to deal with her frustrations and while the hacking of Mia's page is meant to be seen as mostly a comedy and a carefree ploy, it still causes considerable damage. I understand why this was the option but it still felt too wrong. At least there are consequences, although not as serious as it should... I guess wrapping up the novel was more necessary but the author could have done this better.

As with so many things in life, the right way to behave, to act, to do something is within some boundaries, is by having balance in everything. Being on social media isn't the problem, but perhaps how long we do that starts impacting our life... I think this novel and all the allusions to what it means to be online and to act in a way where we rarely need to face the consequences of what we do hiding behind a a screen is important to discuss, but the author also wanted to include other elements, so in this regard, the "lesson" to be learned might not have been as strong as it could.

I liked the author's style and I will try something else by her. In this novel, however, there were some elements which could have been dealt with better and others which were too secondary... perhaps less elements and more focus on one or two would have gotten a better balance. Despite some details I liked less, this was still a very entertaining story, though.

Grade: 7/10