"Over the moon with a metaphysical spin. Heart-tugging...it is struggling to understand the physical realities of life and the nature of what makes us human....Nicely unpredictable...Extraordinary." --Janet Maslin, "The New York Times"
When Maxon met Sunny, he was seven years, four months, and eighteen-days old. Or, he was 2693 rotations of the earth old. Maxon was different. Sunny was different. They were different together.
Now, twenty years later, they are married, and Sunny wants, more than anything, to be "normal." She's got the housewife thing down perfectly, but Maxon, a genius engineer, is on a NASA mission to the moon, programming robots for a new colony. Once they were two outcasts who found unlikely love in each other: a wondrous, strange relationship formed from urgent desire for connection. But now they're parents to an autistic son. And Sunny is pregnant again. And her mother is dying in the hospital. Their marriage is on the brink of imploding, and they're at each other's throats with blame and fear. What exactly has gone wrong?
Sunny wishes Maxon would turn the rocket around and come straight-the-hell home.
When an accident in space puts the mission in peril, everything Sunny and Maxon have built hangs in the balance. Dark secrets, long-forgotten murders, and a blond wig all come tumbling to the light. And nothing will ever be the same....
A debut of singular power and intelligence, "Shine Shine Shine" is a unique love story, an adventure between worlds, and a stunning novel of love, death, and what it means to be human.
About the Author :
LYDIA NETZER was born in Detroit and educated in the Midwest. She lives in Virginia with her two home-schooled children and math-making husband. When she isn't teaching, reading, or writing her next novel, she plays the guitar in a rock band.
Review :
"Not only entertaining, but nuanced and wise...blending wit and imagination with an oddly mesmerizing, matter-of-fact cadence, Netzer's debut is a delightfully unique love story and a resounding paean to individuality."--"People" (People Pick)
"Netzer's storytelling method is as poetic as her language. She slowly assembles a multitude of pinpoint insights that converge to form a glimmering constellation...a stellar, thought-provoking debut" - "The New York Times Book Review"
"Over the moon with a metaphysical spin. Heart-tugging...it is struggling to understand the physical realities of life and the nature of what makes us human....Nicely unpredictable...Extraordinary." --Janet Maslin, "The New York Times"
"You're pulled into the drama through the incredible natural beauty of her writing ... deftly and wittily done ... people say her style reminds them of Anne Tyler, but she reminded me a little bit more of Don DeLillo." - Liesl Schillinger, "The New York Times Book Review "Podcast
"Entirely winning...a refreshingly weird story about the exuberant weirdness of familial love."- "The Wall Street Journal"
"Netzer deftly illuminates the bonds that transcend shortcomings and tragedy. Characterized by finely textured emotions and dramatic storytelling, Netzer's world will draw readers happily into its orbit." --"Publishers Weekly"
"Netzer has beautifully crafted an original story with a cast of characters who make up an unconventional but strangely believable family...This story will shine, shine, shine for all adult readers." --"Library Journal," starred review
"The novel traces Maxon and Sunny's relationship from their childhoods in Burma and Appalachia to outer space, revealing the futility of chasing an ideal of what's normal..."Shine Shine Shine "breaks free of the gravitational pull of traditional romantic cliches." -"The Washington Post"
"Lydia Netzer's luminous debut novel concerns what lies beneath society's pretty surfaces -- Sunny's congenita
"Over the moon with a metaphysical spin. Heart-tugging...it is struggling to understand the physical realities of life and the nature of what makes us human....Nicely unpredictable...Extraordinary." --Janet Maslin, "The New York Times" "A funny, compelling love story from the freshest voice I've heard in years. "Shine Shine Shine" picked me up and left me changed in ways I never expected. Intelligent, emotional, and relentlessly new, Netzer answers questions you didn't know you were already asking and delivers an unforgettable take on what it means to love, to be a mother, and to be human." --Sara Gruen, "#1 New York Times" bestselling author of "Water for Elephants "and "Ape House""From the icy dead surface of the moon to the hot center of the human heart, Lydia Netzer's debut novel takes you on a rocket ride that will rattle your bones. Part science fiction, part pure magic of the human kind, Netzer makes a book that is wholly her own, and endlessly fascinating. At every turn, you think she cannot astonish you again, and then she does it one more time. And then again and again and again. This is an astounding first novel by a writer who is unique in her immense gifts." --Robert Goolrick, #1 New York Times bestselling author of "A Reliable Wife"
"Creating one of the most compelling protagonists I've read in a long time, Lydia Netzer manages to capture the outsider in each of us. Whether looking at the moon, a child, the suburban landscape, or the face in the mirror, Netzer shows us something we've never seen before, something we thought we knew. A beautifully written story where the exception proves the rule: the things that seem to divide us are, ultimately, the very things that unite us." --Brunonia Barry, "New York Ti"mes bestselling author of "The Lace Reader" and "The Map of True Places".
"A perfectly structured gem of a book that held me spellbound as I unraveled the twisted histories of this unconventional family. You've never read anything like it,
"A funny, compelling love story from the freshest voice I've heard in years. "Shine Shine Shine" picked me up and left me changed in ways I never expected. Intelligent, emotional, and relentlessly new, Netzer answers questions you didn't know you were already asking and delivers an unforgettable take on what it means to love, to be a mother, and to be human." --Sara Gruen, "#1 New York Times" bestselling author of "Water for Elephants "and "Ape House" "From the icy dead surface of the moon to the hot center of the human heart, Lydia Netzer's debut novel takes you on a journey that will rattle your bones. Part science fiction, part pure magic of the human kind, Netzer makes a book that is wholly her own, and endlessly fascinating. At every turn, you think she cannot astonish you again, and then she does it one more time. And then again and again and again. This is an astounding first novel by a writer who is unique in her immense gifts." --Robert Goolrick, #1 New York Times bestselling author of "A Reliable Wife"
"Creating one of the most compelling protagonists I've read in a long time, Lydia Netzer manages to capture the outsider in each of us. Whether looking at the moon, a child, the suburban landscape, or the face in the mirror, Netzer shows us something we've never seen before, something we thought we knew. A beautifully written story where the exception proves the rule: the things that seem to divide us are, ultimately, the very things that unite us."
--Brunonia Barry, "New York Ti"mes bestselling author of "The Lace Reader" and "The Map of True Places."
"A perfectly structured gem of a book that held me spellbound as I unraveled the twisted histories of this unconventional family. You've never read anything like it, and yet Sunny's story is every woman's story. We are all outsiders, all alone in space, all trying so hard to find a place called home. I loved this book." --Joshilyn Jackson, "New York Times" bestselling author of "gods in Al
"A funny, compelling love story from the freshest voice I've heard in years. SHINE, SHINE, SHINE picked me up and left me changed in ways I never expected. Intelligent, emotional, and relentlessly new, Netzer answers questions you didn't know you were already asking and delivers an unforgettable take on what it means to love, to be a mother, and to be human." ---Sara Gruen, "#1 New York Times" bestselling author of "Water for Elephants "and "Ape House"
"Creating one of the most compelling protagonists I've read in a long time, Lydia Netzer manages to capture the outsider in each of us. Whether looking at the moon, a child, the suburban landscape, or the face in the mirror, Netzer shows us something we've never seen before, something we thought we knew. A beautifully written story where the exception proves the rule: the things that seem to divide us are, ultimately, the very things that unite us." ---Brunonia Barry, "New York Ti"mes bestselling author of "The Lace Reader" and "The Map of True Places". "A perfectly structured gem of a book that held me spellbound as I unraveled the twisted histories of this unconventional family. You've never read anything like it, and yet Sunny's story is every woman's story. We are all outsiders, all alone in space, all trying so hard to find a place called home. I loved this book." ---Joshilyn Jackson, "New York Times" bestselling author of "gods in Alabama" and "Backseat Saints" "An astronaut, an autistic child, a bald woman and a meteor collide, churning up the ground around a couple of decades-old murders. Life and death intersect in this wildly inventive love story I will be talking about and thinking about for years to come. If Yann Martel and Mary Gaitskill had a literary baby, it would look a lot like Lydia Netzer." ---Karen Abbott, "New York Times" bestselling author of "Sin in the Second City" and "American Rose"
