It was concerning to find this book at the back of the bookstore on a bottom shelf with only three copies available, considering it was its release week. This lack of promotion led me to underestimate the novel quite a bit. I found myself thinking, “Here we go, just a less-than-mediocre YA novel about a girl with powers,” and I can admit it, I was wrong.
Ann Liang’s novel If You Could See the Sun follows Alice Sun, a teenage student at an international boarding school in Beijing. She is a bilingual overachiever who one day turns invisible. With her parents becoming so financially strained that they can no longer pay the expensive tuition, Alice decides to monetize her new found powers to fund her schooling.
Liang’s ability to describe the character’s psyche towards her family, her community, and her education made me feel personally called out. She communicates the frustrations that sometimes come with being bilingual in a way I know only too well. The toxic productivity that surrounds Alice was a familiar window for me to look through. Alice’s thoughts and logic towards her schooling, and the anxieties she felt toward any risk of being less than perfect, brought me back to my younger years when I hadn’t yet learned that lesson: that school grades are not indicative of personal value.
The book itself was an easy read. The plot was relatively predictable, and some decisions made by the characters had me rolling my eyes. To be fair, I think this book would be better enjoyed by the younger readers it’s targeted towards. A crowd for whom the memories of high school are not so distant in their past. Nevertheless, I found the story as beautiful as the cover, and enjoyed reading it.
This is a feel good book, and could easily be enjoyed on a ridiculously poofy arm chair, with hot tea on the side table, and fuzzy rabbit slippers adorning your feet. This book was a hug, and hugs like these remind me of why I read. Put me in the shoes of a girl half my age, across the world, who speaks different languages than me, and make me feel like I belong in those shoes. Show me that I am not alone in my feelings and fears. Make me relate.
