Mia Bell is an internet celebrity as a top influencer for social media platform Pictey. When her fiancée calls off the wedding two days before the event, Mia decides to take a break from social media to recover and reassess her life. She goes a little extreme by tossing her phone off of Mount Wyler In Colorado. Paige Miller is an employee at Pictey who assesses potentially dangerous, inappropriate, or abusive comments and posts. When she learns she missed the comment her half-sister posted on Mia's feed shortly before her suicide attempt, Paige is in a mission to help her sister Jessica and also try to expose Mia as a fraud. We see Mia's journey without a phone back at her mom's house as well as Paige's experience of living like Mia for a bit. Things eventually go sideways for everyone and we find out how they will choose to move forward. A very enjoyable story with flawed but likeable characters that is quite relevant in today's society struggling with so much social media noise in our lives.

i was really excited to read this book, because I loved Kelly’s previous novel.
I enjoyed the premise and storyline of The Bright Side of Going Dark. Sometimes I fee that social media is taking over and is ridiculous.
This book was perfectly okay, but it did take me a lot longer to get through than I hopes.

⚠️ TW - this book contains talk of suicide attempts and panic attacks.


Thanks Netgalley for the ARC!

The book was easy to read, both lighthearted and real at the same time. I didn’t really love either of the main characters, but I think that their flaws were well written and the fact that they ate the villains in their own story felt real. A strong 3.5 from me.

This book just wasn't for me. I didn't connect with the characters, I found the story a little slow and I wasn't invested in what happens. The story takes quite a whlle to kick off, I thought reading about both of the jobs the girls had would be a it more exciting, but it was a bit dull. And I found the POV'd rather similar so I kept forgetting who was talking.
I think I expected this book to be a bit more relaxed and fun but it's a lot more emotional than I expected. I found some scenarios that happened didn't work.

This is the first book I’ve read by Kelly Harms, so for the largest part I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, it quickly became apparent she is a fantastically good writer – funny, witty, scathing, intelligent … I could go on, but it would be boring.

This story is told from the alternating points of view of Mia, a not-Insta influencer whose entire life revolves around her followers and on-trend lifestyle, and Paige, an anxiety-riddled loner who works behind the scenes of not-Insta and fails to understand the lure of social media.

When Mia’s perfectly crafted world falls to pieces and she “goes dark”, Paige is ready to step in to the limelight (though, it’s clearly a light that doesn’t suit everyone). Whilst this book cleverly explores the impact of social media, our obsession with it, and the potential damage it can cause, that’s not everything it’s about. Instead, this is also a story about friendship, sisterhood, motherhood, grief and finding yourself.

That’s a lot to cram in to a few hundred pages, but Harms does it very well and sympathetically so it doesn’t feel crazy and hashed out.

My only criticism is the fact that too many characters sounded the same. Paige was a very distinct voice, but as new characters were introduced, they started sound far too much like her. It’s a shame, as it watered her down, for me, and made her seem less Paige-like. It’s a small, picky gripe, and in no way did it change the fact this was an awesome read.

A book that draws you in shows you the dark side of being influenced by people on social media.A book that will make you want to delete your social media apps.It also is a fun read a book I recommend.#netgalley #lakeunion

The Bright Side of Going Dark is a book about two women, Mia and Paige, who are living totally different lives. Mia is an influencer on this book’s social media equivalent of Instagram, and Paige is works for the social media company behind the scenes in a quality control role. Their worlds collide when Mia suddenly goes dark and Paige begins to take over her social media feed and pretends to be Mia.

This book was a pleasant surprise. I ought to mention that if topics such as suicide are triggering to you, this may not be the book to read.. I don’t want to spoil things in saying this, but I think it’s an important heads up. That being said, I really appreciate the way this book tackle such issues as suicide and mental health.

I also really appreciate that while the book focuses quite a bit on the downsides of social media, it does also show how social media can bring people together. Maybe that’s the unintended side effect of the book, but these two girls would have never met if it wasn’t for Mia being a famous influencer.

I do think that this book does show how social media can consume our lives so that we end up missing the beauty around us. We get so caught up in likes and followers and filters that we forget what it’s like to eat a meal without taking a picture of our food, or checking the weather. We forget how to communicate. I appreciate that this book that, on the surface seemed like just a fun book with some romance thrown in, had some serious societal commentary.

For all the deep discussion we can have about this book, it really was a fun read, and I loved every moment of it. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book as an eARC.

First of all, thank you to @netgalley for the complimentary eARC in exchange for an honest review! This book publishes on May 12 and I think it’ll be a big one.
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I went into this book expecting something light, funny, maybe touching on technology over-usage. What I got was a look at “influencer” culture, depression, suicidal ideation, loneliness, and the disconnection of such a connected world.
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This book is a fast, easy read - but that doesn’t take away from the power of the message. In fact, I think it makes it even more powerful because it is so accessible.
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This book is not a light read, but it was worthwhile and I have been hit with a bit of a book hangover. There are some cliches or overused tropes, but they feel intentional and I appreciated the social commentary.
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Now, am I going to go throw my phone off a mountain? No. But I will be thinking twice about how “social” social media can be.

"The Overdue Life of Amy Byler" was my introduction to Kelly Harms, and I loved that book so much that when I saw Kelly Harms had a new book out I was excited to get an ARC of her new story! This story revolved around how social media and growing up with social media as part of our lives can impact our mental health. I feel that this is such an important topic and I am so happy that this book explores how social media and constantly looking at how "perfect" the lives of our "friends" are can affect how we feel about our own lives. I so appreciated how the book treated talking about anxiety, depression, and mental health, so many books that touch on mental health issues feed into the stereotype that people that have mental health issues are "crazy" and add to the stigma making people with mental health issues continue to want to hide instead of come forward. Though this book touched on some heavy topics, it was a fast delightful read with relatable characters, that I didn't want to put down once I started it! I loved Mia, Paige, and Jessica, and all the other characters and how they grew as the story progressed. Kelly Harms writes books about topics that matter, and I can't wait to see what story she comes up with next!

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. From the same author as The Overdue Life of Amy Byler. Mia is an influencer in the platform Pictey. Paige is a consultant on the Pictey site. Mia has a follower that is claiming suicide and Paige is the one that should have caught the flag. Mia decides that her device was ruling her life as Paige found her site to ruin other lives. Mia goes dark and throws her phone off a cliff. What does Paige do about it? This book hit home outlining how much social media and devices run our life (this post’s irony isn’t lost on me). What if everyone went dark for a day, a week, a month??? #thebrightsideofgoingdark #kellyharms #may2020

I absolutely adored this book. I loved The Overdue Life of Amy Byler, so I was really excited to receive an e-ARC of this book - and it did not disappoint.

This book is very accessible and would be readable by a YA audience, but also entertaining as contemporary fiction. The book is told by two voices, Mia and Paige. Mia is a social media star (of an app similar to Instagram) and Paige works as a regulator for the app (deleting negative comments, etc). Their lives entwine unexpectedly and introduce a whole host of interesting and sympathetic characters.

This book would be great to use with high school or Comp 1 students as it would serve as a basis for discussion about social media, mental health, the responsibility we have for others, and the interconnectedness of human beings. The story does not come down on either side, which amplifies its readability - you don't feel like you're being sold a particular point-of-view. What you come away with is some thoughts about why we look for validation online, what we can find in the real world, and maybe the urge to consider our own social media use a little more closely. This book mixes the light and the serious, all in an enjoyable read.

I loved this book and I am a huge fan of this author. Kelly Harms is not your typical "chick lit" writer; it seems like there is always some little twist or something unexpected and unpredictable about her stories. They are never predicatable!

On the surface, "The Bright Side of Going Dark" would appear to simply be a tale centered about social media and the Influencers that use the medium for their gain, but there is much more to this story. We follow two main characters and then meet a few other significant characters as they navigate the social media world from both in front of and behind the camera -- the good, the bad, and the ugly, if you will. Mia is a successful Influencer on Picty (think Instagram) while Paige works behind the scenes at Picty in the Safety and Standards department. Naturally their paths will cross, but I will leave that for you to discover.

Harms has a delicious knack with dialogue and character development. In all of her novels you always get the sense that these are real people, not just ink on a page.

This book will be released May 12 by Lake Union Publishing. I was provided an ARC via NetGalley for a fair and honest review. I truly love this author's work and highly recommend every single one of her novels! Put this one on your radar.

I previously read The Overdue Life of Amy Byler by the same author (and loved it!) so when I had an opportunity to get an advanced copy of this book, I jumped at it. This book is refreshing and should probably be mandatory reading for anyone under the age of 30. The Bright Side of Going Dark is about an internet influencer named Mia who is planning on getting married using paid sponsorships, but who is then dumped before the wedding and has to deal with the fallout. It is also about Paige, a content screener who works for the internet company Mia is associated with. Both of their stories are parallel and intersecting at the same time. I loved the flow of this book. The characters are not one dimensional and you easily drift between one story and the other. This book makes you stop and think about our addiction to social media and having to always feel our phone touching our skin. As a woman of a certain age, I am lucky that I was able to be the last generation to play outside and use my imagination and just get 'bored' but I also am guilty of having multiple social media account and feeling a sense of dread when I can't find my phone in my purse after I have left the house. I'm thinking this summer I'm going to have to go dark myself and bring my children down with me...

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was a light, fun read that flowed very well despite alternating chapters between the two characters (Mia and Paige). Both characters were authentic and relatable. Anxiety, cyberbullying, young suicide, pressure to be perfect, phone/internet addiction, dysfunctional mother/daughter relationships and the fact that a large percentage of what is put out on social media is fake are all issues touched on in this story. This book made me think about how I’m truly spending my ‘quality’ time.

This is the first book I have read by Kelly Harms. I will definitely be checking out her other books. I love her writing style.

Fun read and really interesting to think about the impact of social media, both good and bad, on all of our lives. This book definitely made me want to get rid of my apps, so there's that! I think this would be excellent for book clubs.

I sat down to read this thinking it would be a light, fun read. I was right! Mostly. I loved this book. Loved the way the two stories ran together without knowing. I loved the way they collided. And I loved the way, when all parts came together it was a logical and natural conclusion.

“Bright Side of Going Dark” tells the story of social media influencer, Mia Bell. We all know those people, right? They post pictures of every morsel of food they have eaten, every workout, and every single movie and television show they are watching. But Mia takes it a step further, turning it into a career where she hopes to get sponsorship, using her wedding planning as a bandwagon to garner attention. (“Pretty Things” by Janelle Brown includes a character who is an influencer. I was not even aware this was a thing before reading these two novels!) But when the wedding is called off, Mia is tasked with keeping up appearances, which becomes too much too handle. Hence, she returns to her mother in Colorado and vows to stay off social media all together. What kind of a life can you lead when your moments are not spun to post onto the screen?

Paige works for the social media website that Mia posts on. Her job is to flag problematic posts, but the post she misses in the one from her estranged half-sister who voices whether her life is worth living on one of Mia’s threads. Feeling guilty as Paige also wrestled with depression and suicide at a similar age, Paige visits her sister while becoming consumed with Mia and why she is no longer posting. She partially blames Mia for creating an ideal that her sister could not live up to.

As previous reviews have mentioned, this novel is not just about the dangers (and benefits?) of social media, but also finding oneself and going through the growing pains (which never stop) of life. As I was reading this book, I could not help but notice how many times a day I scroll through Facebook or need to check my phone for updates.

The novel is told in the alternating viewpoints of Mia and Paige, and Harms has a solid sense of the voice of each narrator. She also does not hesitate to point out the quirkiness that makes us human. Parts of this book were painful to read, simply because of how awkward people can sometimes be. Harms managed to address the topic of mental illness and suicide without coming across as preachy. But it’s not all serious—humor and laugh out loud moments are peppered throughout the book.

This is the first novel I have read by Kelly Harms, but plan to now read The Overdue Life of Amy Byler so that I can spend more time with this author.

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley. My thanks also to the publisher and the author, Kelly Harms.

This was a fun read! Very apropos for this modern age. The main character’s struggle with her job as an internet influencer brings into focus the average person’s addiction to a whole lot of nothing. Mia makes a lot of money at it, but as it takes over her real life, she realizes something has to give. It didn’t surprise me that she held on as long as she did. What did surprise me were Paige’s choices in the book’s other POV. I loved the contrast between the voices - Paige struck me as borderline Ausbergers and kept her word choice in line with that mind frame. Paige was very entertaining and unintentionally funny. There was nothing new morality wise in this story but it’s an entertaining read about a subject so many people struggle with today.

The depth of this book shocked me. I was not expecting to read such a strong depiction of the importance of mental health and how social media affects it. The Bright Side of Going Dark does a remarkable job at shining a light on social media influencers and how their lives are filtered depictions of what they want you to see. Mia is a popular social media influencer who decides to step awake from her fake world and live in the real world. Paige is someone who avoids interactions outside of her normal day; when Mia walks away from her social media life, Paige takes over. She realizes how nice it is to have such an influence over so many people. This book has so much heart and made me cry a few times.

This was a great book that I had a great time reading. The characters were well drawn, and the storyline flowed seamlessly. Would like to read more books by this author.