If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang

Book: If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang

Rating: 3 stars 

Reviewer: Jackie C.

If You Could See The Sun by Ann Liang, takes place in modern day Beijing, China. The book is centered around a girl named Alice Sun, who, you could say, leads an “invisible life" at her elite international boarding school in Beijing. Coming from a poor family, Alice aims for greatness in her academic life in hopes of procuring a well paying job so she can finally bring her family out of poverty. With the tuition fee now raised, Ann is informed by her parents that they can no longer pay for her tuition. Despite that, Ann has a much more pressing matter at hand: she is turning invisible at random and can not figure out why or how to even control it. Though faced with such a problem, Ann soon realizes that there is a positive side to her situation. Information, such as secrets, are precious things that people are willing to pay quite a price for, and not only that, she is surrounded by China’s most influential and rich teens. As Ann tries to balance her schoolwork, stealing secrets, and her growing relationship with her rival, who also happens to be her business partner, things start to fall apart. Alice’s jobs quickly change from stealing secrets to more serious crimes, and she must decide if helping her family is worth betraying her morals, or even losing her life.

I felt that the plot was overall good and enjoyable, but in all honesty it was a bit hard to get into the book at first, as the pacing was quite slow. None of the characters really stood out to me either and the author did not  explain how the main character got her power, which I found quite bothersome. Despite that, it was still a good read because the pacing eventually quickened and I wanted to keep reading it to see what would happen. I would give it three out of five stars. I would recommend this book to those who like school life books and high stakes.