If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang
Welcoming September with If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang ☀️ This book felt like the perfect way to start a new month—relatable, heartfelt, and a little bit whimsical.
As someone who has spent most of her life trying to excel in school, I really feel for Alice. I did not grow up in a wealthy family but I was fortunate enough to get the best quality of education there is though not without struggles and sacrifices along the way. Along with that came the constant pressure to stay at the top of my class and live up to my family’s expectations, because it felt like the least I could do in return for their support. Now that I’m older, I wish I could have given my younger self more space to breathe, enjoy, and simply be young. The younger me would have felt so seen while reading this book. It’s always amazing when we find pieces of ourselves reflected in the stories we read.
On a lighter note, Ann Liang is really good at writing YA romances that will give you butterflies and have you grinning silly 😂 I keep picturing Yang Yang in Love 020 as Henry Li (to my CDrama girlies, iykyk 😉)
I really loved the overall message of this book but I wished Alice’s invisibility was explained or explored more. By the end, it seemed unresolved, and since the story no longer needed it, it just sort of… disappeared. Still, I truly enjoyed this read and can’t wait to see what Ann Liang’s other novels have in store for me 💖
In this genre-bending , speculative YA debut, a Chinese American girl monetizes her strange new invisibility powers by discovering and selling her wealthy classmates’ most scandalous secrets.
Alice Sun has always felt invisible at her elite Beijing international boarding school, where she’s the only scholarship student among China’s most rich and influential teens. But then she starts uncontrollably turning invisible— actually invisible.
When her parents drop the news that they can no longer afford her tuition, even with the scholarship, Alice hatches a plan to monetize her strange new power—she’ll discover the scandalous secrets her classmates want to know, for a price.
But as the tasks escalate from petty scandals to actual crimes, Alice must decide if it’s worth losing her conscience—or even her life.