If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang (Review by Stephanie Rowitz)

Rating: 3.5/5

What would you do if you could monetize your superpower?

The way Alice Sun sees it, she can either dwell on the downside of her newfound invisibility powers or she can do odd jobs for her classmates and earn money to pay the tuition at her elite boarding school. To Alice, the choice is clear. She wants to stay at her current school and help her parents with their financial burden at the same time. At first, her tasks fall into the vigilante category–handing out justice to those who abuse their power over those who can’t fight for themselves. But as her classmates’ requests escalate to unethical and downright illegal tasks, Alice has to decide if she’s willing to lose her moral compass in exchange for a place at one of top schools in China.

If You Could See the Sun grabs you from the very beginning and doesn’t let go until the final page. It’s a thoughtful story that explores race and class differences as well as the societal expectations of elite students. Told with wit and compassion, If You Could See the Sun makes you root for Alice even when she makes questionable choices because we’ve all been at the crossroads of childhood and adulthood trying to figure out our place in the world.

What I wished to see more of in this book was an explanation of why she got her invisibility power. Suddenly she just has it one day, and while stress seems to contribute to her turning invisible at inopportune times, the book doesn’t explain why she’s the only stressed-out teenager who happens to turn invisible. However, the story is well-written and the suspenseful plot makes this a quick and pleasurable read.