If You Could See the Sun

My Thoughts:

In an overpopulated cis YA romance field, Liang's YA debut stands out as a genre-bending, speculative fiction that highlights academic rivalry, private school privilege, classism, and a supernatural "gift." At the end of the day, though, this is a love story, even if the main character, Alice Sun does not know that she is in a love story. For her, she is in a tragedy of circumstance and poverty.Except for her favorite teacher, Alice has felt invisible to most of her teachers, her classmates, even the guard at the front of the school that insists on seeing her ID even if she is wearing the school uniform. The only person that "sees" her is her academic rival and irritatingly beautiful, popular and rich Henry Li. So when Alice finds that she has the ability to literally disappear, this may be her solution for paying for her elite education in Beijing. 

This is not a book I would use in curriculum except to have it in my classroom library, however, if teachers are making a book stack for speculative fiction, this would be one to add. Speculative fiction seems to be a fairly new label of genre, so making readres aware of what this is may help to encourage more lifelong readers who are interested in genre fluid stories and both the possibilities and impossibilities of this genre. In the same way that there is a greater acceptance in gender fluidity, I think as a way to decolonize language arts, we should be looking at genre fluid works like this too. In fact we should stop trying to pigeonhole stories into silos any way. I'm talking to the publishers. A good story is a good story is a good story. This was a good story. It may not be a candidate for a class novel or a literature circle (which for this blog are the 5 star books), however, this is still a good story. I enjoyed it and recommend it. In addition, the audiobook is also well done. 

From the Publisher:

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.

Publication Information:

Author: Ann Liang

Publisher: Inkyard Press (November 14, 2023)

Paperback: 320 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1335005984

Grade level: 7-9

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