What a great read! This book is captivating from start to finish! The setting is 1939 at the Worlds Fair in Queens, NY. Max and Vivi are two very different girls whose worlds collide at the fair. Max is an aspiring journalist trying to gain both experience and bylines at the fairs daily dispatch. Vivi is an actress banished from Hollywood to Star in an Aquacade Show. Each girl is determined to make something of and assert themselves at a time when women’s role in society is still the cliche housewife. Together they learn and grow over a summer of self discovery and challenges.

This book is a real page turner and I could have easily read in a day if life and work didn’t get in the way. It’s easy to fall in love with Max & Vivi and their aspirations. They learn to be strong and stand up for themselves in the most unexpected ways. I love how the author details the World’s Fair! I actually found myself googling it to learn more. I would love to see a sequel to this book. I’d love to see where the girls are 10 years later and on the other side of WWII.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and St Martins Griffin for the advanced copy. It was a pleasure to read!

I enjoyed the character development throughout the book and they way the author depicted the struggles of young women, both personally and professionally. I had not read much about the Worlds Fair of ‘39 so was interested in all aspects of this time in history.

Loved this book! This was a quick and delightful read. It centers on two women working at the 1939 World's Fair, and the life-altering friendship they develop. The parallel personal and professional challenges they experience draws them closer together and unites them in trying to carve out a life of their own design at a time when women weren't always encouraged to do so. It was also a charming look into a fascinating and underwritten cultural event-- I loved considering the restaurants, amusements, and other exciting happenings at the World's Fair.


Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was such an interesting book. I didn't know much about the World's Fair, and I enjoyed having that as a backdrop to the plot and the story. The characters were well done, and not too perfect. It makes you sit down and realize that while we still have a lot of problems in the #metoo era, we have come a long way. I really enjoyed this book. Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Net Galley for an e-ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review.

We Came Here to Shine by Susie Orman Schnall is an exceptional story about two young women discovering a powerful friendship and the obstacles they both overcome to succeed.

It’s 1939 New York and Max, a journalist down-graded to writing fair ads because she’s a woman and Vivi, a hapless actress sent to perform in the World’s Fair aquacade show meet and develop a friendship that is empowering and supportive. The story is one that resonates; a series of unfortunate events and the misogynism of the time leads both young women to improve their circumstances while working around the hindrances put in their way. Each girl’s personality compliments the others and they balance each other out in the best of ways. This is a friendship I thoroughly enjoyed and the historical element is one that I find fascinating.

A big thank you to NetGalley, St. Martins Press, and Susie Orman Schnall for providing me with a copy of We Came Here to Shine in exchange for my honest review.

The year is 1939 and the feminist movement is in its infancy stage. Vivi Holden and Maxine "Max" Roth both meet at the 1939 World's Fair. Vivi is an aspiring actress and Max is an aspiring journalist. Both are dependent upon the men in their industry...for Vivi as a down-on-her luck starlet, she is removed from the current movie she was making as the lead actress and sent to New York to perform in Billy Rose's Aquacade. With no experience as a water ballerina, she has no choice but to follow the dictates of the studio and the men who run it. For Max, as an aspiring journalist, instead of becoming a summer intern at the New York Times, she is sent to a publication covering the World's Fair, but not as a journalist!

There was so much more here that could have been included in this story. After all we were on the brink of WWII, times economically were tough, and women, well they were still kept at home with their aprons, their mundane tasks and for the most part they could all have been called "June Cleaver." Yet the friendship between these 2 women, their efforts to be recognized not only for their talents but for their gender and how they faced their adversity, was a joy to read. It has been an uphill struggle all these years for women, it still is.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I read Schnall's THE SUBWAY GIRLS about a year ago and loved it. WE CAME HERE TO SHINE is equally as good. Set during the 1939 World's Fair in New York, WE CAME HERE TO SHINE follows two young women: Max, a journalist student at NYU and Vivi, a Hollywood actress (from NYC) who is sent to the World's Fair to be the headliner of a synchronized swimming showcase. Filled with a lot of heart, Schnall's story of 1939 is about the power of friendship, the burgeoning feminist movement, searching for equality, and wanting love and acceptance in the world. Schnall's story is still relevant and timely today. With an easy to read writing style, an intriguing setting (I wish I could go to the 1939 World's Fair and I loved reading the behind the scenes of the swimming troupe), and two memorable female characters, Schnall's book shines!

This is an interesting historical fiction set during the 1939 World’s Fair in NYC. I completely lost myself in this novel which brought together two girls from different backgrounds who wound up working at the fair for the summer. Max was a journalist student at NYU who was assigned this internship for the summer while competing with her fellow students for a full ride scholarship for the upcoming year. Vivi was a Hollywood star who didn’t make the cut for the big movie that she was promised so the studio sent her to the fair to perform in the aqua show. I enjoyed the setting but this was so much more about women’s rights during these years. The author did a great job making the characters come to life involving you in all their disappointments and accomplishments. Great job and I highly recommend! #WeCameHereToShine #SusieOrmanSchnall #NetGalley

This book was received as an ARC from St. Martin's Press in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

I absolutely love books and stories focused on empowerment and strength women have in succeeding in what they do and it is no different Viv and Max. Viv is determined to become a famous actress and even making it in LA lead her back to New York where she will stop at nothing to be back on top and develop her career on her terms in her own way. Then we have Maxine who lands a job at The New York Times but because she is the only female in the room, she lands the beat writing pop up jobs and it is her destiny to be the lead featured reporter even if it means at times she has to be the only voice in the room. The realtionship between Max and Viv and the correlation of their stories was so inspirational and invigorating to read that not only women back then appreciated, but women in 2019-2020 will appreciate as well. These books do very well at our library and I can not wait to share it with our community.

We will consider adding this title to our Historical Fiction collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

I had enjoyed Schnall’s earlier novel, but I was very disappointed in this. I felt it read like a YA novel, full of cliches and failing to acknowledge anything real that happened during the tumultuous time of the 1939 World’s Fair.

The characters were very stereotypical, Max the intrepid female reporter, Vivi, the pretty woman with dark secrets. There was no depth or reality in both the situations and lives of the characters. Writing about the frivolous World’s Fair and neglecting to to deal with the hard issues like the chaos in Europe, anti-Semitism here in America and the lingering poverty after the depression made this very superficial.

Too much use of convenient coincidences was also something which simply doesn’t work. I can’t help but think this should be called “Max, Star Reporter Visits the World’s Fair.”

Thank you Netgalley.

A few years ago, I had an opportunity to read, "Twilight at the World of Tomorrow: Genius, Madness, Murder, and the 1939 World's Fair on the Brink of War" by James Mauro. That book gave an excellent perspective on the people behind the fair and the atmosphere at the time. So when I saw this title, I was looking forward to a fictional tale of being at the fair. And while the book is not terrible by any means, I never got a feel for the fair, the women, or even the time of 1939. The writing was extremely simplistic and like the story and characters, greatly missing nuance or sophistication.

Story: Vivi has a great contract in Hollywood at one of the prestigious studios. Maxine is graduating from journalism school and looking forward to writing insightful articles at the NY Times. But both are disappointed - Maxine is instead assigned to the World's Fair paper and Vivi's star maker role is given to someone else and she is contractually required to do the Aquacade show at the Worlds Fair all the way in NY. Both keenly feel the demotion but also try to better their situations in their own way.

The book alternates POVs of both women. An odd writing choice was to have the exact same situation happen to each at the same time. E.g., both at the same time get a disappointment as their first choice goal is taken away and they are dumped in the fair. Both have bad breakups at the same time. Both get career opportunities at the same time. The result of this parallel storytelling is that it was hard at times to differentiate the two. We are told, but not really shown, that one is passionate and aggressive while the other is more reserved and less aggressive. But honestly, if you had exchanged the names in the books, you wouldn't have noticed the difference.

The plotting is very small-story: both Max and Vivi spend most of the time fighting men who want to control/use them while they try to find their own way. Max is denied the chance to write articles and instead has to compile the daily Fair program (she is told that girls are better at that type of thing and that every time a girl tries to write something, it's terrible'). Vivi spurns the advances of the studio head/casting couch and so as punishment finds herself doing a mediocre fair show instead of starring in the next big movie. Both have a love interest and male antagonist. They meet half way through the book at a rally by a women's rights activist at the fair.

There are two huge missing characters from the book. First - the fair. Most of the time the women are either ignoring the entire thing or just passing through, too busy to be impressed by the spectacle. Even when people/friends/colleagues try to impress on them to enjoy it as long as they are there, they continually decide their are too busy to really explore it. We do get scenes where they eat something special at this pavilion or have dinner at that exhibit. Vivi also gives us a great perspective on the Aquacade and why it was so successful (among a fair that was very financially unsuccessful). But I kept wishing for scenes where one or both would explore the fair and its grounds more.

The other missing character was milieu - America on the cusp of World War. The book felt more like it was set in the 1920s than the 1940s - there was nothing in there that gave me a sense of time and place. The women's stories were microfocused on their own trials and tribulations with the men in power around them. It meant that the story takes place in a bubble independent of the world around them. So many unique aspects of the era - how they would dress in the morning, walking around on heels, what they wore in their hair/hats or how they dealt with life in the 1940s and its challenges - all missing.

The above aside, the biggest frustration was the writing. It was very "she did that, she did this, she walked by that, he said this." The writing was very straight-forward, making for a rather bland read. There were no highs and lows in the emotions, the location, or the people. It made both women seem simplistic as a result. That isn't to say there were writing errors - just that the story lacked the depth I look for when reading a book. This does for the #metoo generation what Elvis did for the Seattle World's Fair in the movie "It happened At The Fair." Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.