Sunny Mann seems to lead a perfect life. She's married to her childhood sweetheart, who has become wealthy thanks to immense success in his field. But his field is robotics, and sometimes Maxon has trouble distinguishing his human emotions from a robot's machinations. Maxon knows he loves, regrets and forgives, but he finds it difficult to understand why he is different from his beloved robots.
And Sunny has trouble accepting that. She's playing the role of the perfect housewife, caring for the couple's autistic son, Bubber, while putting on her best smile for their wealthy neighbors, even while Maxon is on a mission to populate the moon with the robots he's constructed. Everything looks Stepford-perfect—that is, until Sunny's in a car wreck and her perfectly coifed blonde 'do flies off, revealing her completely bald head.
It's just one of many idiosyncratic twists in Shine Shine Shine, an amusing and unpredictable novel from book doctor Lydia Netzer. Netzer has spent her career fixing others' manuscripts, and with this first major publisher effort she proves a creative force in her own right.
On a rocket bound for the moon, Maxon reckons with his humanity as compared to the perfectly structured machines he adores. But his love for Sunny reminds him that he is, in fact, human. Meanwhile, Sunny is left earthbound, pregnant with the couple's second child and, after the wreck, suddenly determined to unmask herself and reveal her imperfections for all to see.
As they face challenges without the lifelong support system they've provided each other, Sunny and Maxon must confront the realities of loving flawed beings. Ultimately, Shine Shine Shine is a story about the nature of love—and a lovable, quirky novel from a new voice in fiction.
