If You Could See the Sun

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Alice realizes there’s an upside to her strange new power—unparalleled access to the secrets of China’s most rich and influential teens. Soon, Alice has a new plan: offer her invisibility services to find out what her classmates want to know—for a price. Alice is a really realistic main character, and I relate to her with all of the worrying about your academics and all of that, and I love that she wasn't perfect, which makes her incredibly relatable. She makes certain decisions that had me questioning her, but I can understand why she made them, because she was just trying to help her family, and speaking of which, I also loved her dedication to family. Then her parents drop a bomb -- they can no longer afford her tuition, even with the scholarship. But that's the least of Alice's problems, because she has started uncontrollably turning invisible. As in completely, physically invisible.

Upon discovering her parents can no longer afford their portion of her schooling and with the new ability she now obtains, Alice takes into her own hands to devise a plan to earn all the money she needs to pay for her own tuition. She cannot do it without the help of her rival, Henry, to create an app to offer her secret services at a cost. If You Could See the Sun isn’t just special because it decenters whiteness, and saying that would unfortunately recenter whiteness in the conversation surrounding the book. It is also just a better version of this genre than we often see. When you finish reading The Secret History or If We Were Villains, you are still left with an undercurrent of romanticization and maybe some abstract ideas about where the moral boundary is; you are only ever shown the dark side of academia through a dreamy lens that in many ways glorifies suffering. If You Could See the Sun does not pull these punches. Instead, it allows the reader to take in the staggering inequalities of the institution it is set in, and it shows the consequences of the way our society has simultaneously made a student’s ability to learn their entire identity and something that hinges on how much privilege they have. Alice isn’t hurt by the institution she gives everything to because of a failed test or college rejection letter. She is hurt because she was forced into horrendous moral compromises by a school that didn’t care enough to make itself accessible to her. This is what dark academia means. I received this book for free from Harper360UK in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. this. People say that towards the end of the book, her invisibility abruptebly started to fade away. I think she just started seeing herself 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️. Her dedication for studying and then helping out her parents. Her stubborn and feisty attitude. Also its adorable how she's so oblivious to the fact that Henry likes her like pls babe. 😭💖

About this book

I have one complain though. I wish there was a scientific or idk a reason for Alice becoming invisible. Like a Chinese folk tale. A theory. A phenomena. Just something. Something regarding star alignment. Really anything fictional that just justifies her becoming invisible. Henry Li with the praise kink. *gasp* but i loved him sm fr, he was so sweet and studious and cute and I WOULD DIE FOR HIM did i mention?? i love smart guys irl. gimme a soft, sweet, cute guy anytime and i'll eat him up. (and no i didn't realise until just now how creepy that sounded) he was literally so PERFECT for Alice!! 🥺

I know. That’s when it’s worse, almost,” “Your presence ... it’s so overwhelming, I cannot imagine the absence of it. I don’t want to. Does that make sense?” yes, is the obvious answer. i do hate you. i hate everything about you. i hate you so much that whenever i’m around you, i can barely think straight. i can barely even breathe.” sure you do alice 😭😭 Henry and Alice are just so freaking perfect! I loved each and every moment these two were together! The chemistry between these two is absolutely unmatched and the banter (mostly one-sided on Alice’s end) was so fun to read about!! Also the moments between these two, whether they’re funny, cute or vulnerable… I LOVED THEM ALL!!!In this genre-bending YA debut, a Chinese American girl monetizes her strange new invisibility powers by discovering and selling her wealthy classmates’ most scandalous secrets. You always have a bad feeling," she says with a wave of her hand. "Your body like, functions on bad feelings. In fact, I'd be very concerned if you weren't high-key stressed about something right now. THIS is what I’m talking about when I say I love academic rivals to lovers. This book is literally the definition of this trope and I’m so freaking in love with it, you guys have NO IDEA!!! the reason i'm not giving this a full five stars is because it got slow in the beginning, but once i got past that, the book was perfect. the setting was literally a match made in heaven for me, academic rivals to lovers in an elite boarding school setting >> but there was also so much else i liked about this book: the commentary on social class and money, and how everyone else at airington was wealthy beyond belief while alice was compromising her studies and her physical and mental health just to afford a spot there; the reminders that alice is still just a kid and has so much going for her and that she shouldn’t be afraid to dream and go after what she wants; alice’s coming to terms with the gravitas of her actions and taking responsibility for what she did, and accepting the consequences even though we know she did it out of sheer desperation and, in good conscience, would never have done such a thing. sometimes the unfairness of the world leaves us with no good choices, and in our haste to make the right one, we choose unwisely.

Absolutely breathtaking. If You Could See the Sun is a clever, compassionate examination of class, privilege, and the American Dream, with characters you can't help but root for. Liang is a rising star in YA fiction."—Grace D. Li, New York Times bestselling author of Portrait of a Thief You’ll become the head of the number one tech start-up in all of China, and I’ll be a renowned, award-winning journalist or English professor. Together, we’ll—❞ ❝ Be the nation’s greatest power couple?❞ he offers. ❝ I was going to say conquer the world, But sure. I guess we can start small.❞ This book reminds you of sitting in a blanket, nestled up and eating chocolate. It feels like this warm and fuzzy feeling that just overwhelms your heart. If you're feeling down, this book can cheer you up in so many ways. It such a fun and cute read, I would recomend it forever. This book will forever be close to my heart 🫶🏼 And everything about this moment is so lovely and so fragile in its loveliness that I’m almost afraid to hold it. Afraid that the spell will break.”

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The only thing that kind of was a minus for me is that it was so short and how abruptly it ended… I wish we could’ve seen more of Henry and Alice together at the end and maybe even an epilogue. Utterly unique, thought-provoking, and wonderfully written."—Gloria Chao, author of American Panda and Rent a Boyfriend Alice was in general such a fun character!! I enjoyed her inner monologue and thoughts so much! She’s just so interesting and loveable. I loved being in her head and seeing her perspective on things and events. She’s definitely a favourite character of mine now! Also some of the not so minor "crimes/situations" were brushed aside when they were actually pretty serious issues (see the tw at the end of the review). Only one of them was really dealt with.