If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang
Alice is that girl - she’s a straight A student at an exclusive Beijing international boarding
school, she wins the award for top student nearly every year, she’s friendly with everyone, and
one of the richest and most sought after boys, Henry, can’t keep his eyes off her. But beneath
the surface, she feels invisible. Being friendly doesn’t mean having friends. She’s on partial
scholarship at her school, but her parents have just dropped the bomb that they can’t afford the
next semester’s tuition. She hardly has any goals other than just being the best - at academics,
in college admissions, in her future job. And the only reason Henry won’t stop bothering her is
because they’re rivals - tying for top student every year. And somehow, this feeling of being
invisible starts to become actual invisibility, preceded by a strange feeling of coldness. Alice
doesn’t know how to stop it, but she does know how to take advantage of it - and she goes to
the only person she knows who can help her: Henry, who also happens to be a tech whiz.
Together, they launch a secret app where Alice acts as a personal spy to the wealthy students
at her school - for a price of course. If everything goes according to plan, she’ll pay off her tuition
and be able to continue attending the school. At least until the tuition is raised, and she gets a
request she doesn’t know if she can pull off...
I loved this book! The characters are enjoyable and likable, and Alice is really relatable
as a high school student striving for the best grades in the hardest classes. The tension in the
romance was amazing, and there were multiple scenes that nearly forced me to keep reading
with how anticipatory I was. The end of the main conflict felt a little forced though, and didn’t
make complete sense. Overall, it was really great though. I would rate it 4 out of 5.