“If You Could See the Sun” by Ann Liang ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: YA/Supernatural Academia. Location: Beijing, China. Time: Present.
Chinese American Alice Yan loves making lists. She’s type A, gets straight As, is the only scholarship recipient at her elite school, and is known as the Study Machine. When August term starts at Beijing’s Airington International Boarding School, she expects the usual: Try to beat her nemesis Henry Li for 1st place honors, and share a dorm room with super rich Chanel.
When her parents can’t afford her tuition, Alice must find a way to stay at school. Then, she randomly and inexplicably starts turning invisible. Can she monetize her unstable new power to pay her tuition? At first, through her “Beijing Ghost” app, she sells secrets to wealthy classmates. But when it escalates to actual crimes, Alice has a choice to make. Is the payoff worth her guilty conscience? Will she be forever tainted by her shady and illegal activities?
The translator includes Chinese words and slang that helps readers feel immersed in an elite Beijing school experience. Author Liang includes several themes-There’s the devoted daughter trying to not embarrass her parents; the girl who feels invisible at school among all her rich, privileged classmates; the good girl or bad girl choice; the girl dedicated to bettering herself through education, and even an ‘academic rivals to lovers’ trope. She tasks Alice with negotiating many plot twists and turns, and she keeps the 1st person narrative easy to follow. Liang is pretty amazing- she just graduated from college and this is her debut novel! I’m looking forward to more works by her, and it’s definitely 5 stars from me🌵📚💁🏼♀️ Thank you to BookishFirst and Alice Liang for this copy.
Chinese American Alice Yan loves making lists. She’s type A, gets straight As, is the only scholarship recipient at her elite school, and is known as the Study Machine. When August term starts at Beijing’s Airington International Boarding School, she expects the usual: Try to beat her nemesis Henry Li for 1st place honors, and share a dorm room with super rich Chanel.
When her parents can’t afford her tuition, Alice must find a way to stay at school. Then, she randomly and inexplicably starts turning invisible. Can she monetize her unstable new power to pay her tuition? At first, through her “Beijing Ghost” app, she sells secrets to wealthy classmates. But when it escalates to actual crimes, Alice has a choice to make. Is the payoff worth her guilty conscience? Will she be forever tainted by her shady and illegal activities?
The translator includes Chinese words and slang that helps readers feel immersed in an elite Beijing school experience. Author Liang includes several themes-There’s the devoted daughter trying to not embarrass her parents; the girl who feels invisible at school among all her rich, privileged classmates; the good girl or bad girl choice; the girl dedicated to bettering herself through education, and even an ‘academic rivals to lovers’ trope. She tasks Alice with negotiating many plot twists and turns, and she keeps the 1st person narrative easy to follow. Liang is pretty amazing- she just graduated from college and this is her debut novel! I’m looking forward to more works by her, and it’s definitely 5 stars from me🌵📚💁🏼♀️ Thank you to BookishFirst and Alice Liang for this copy.