Content levels
Trigger warnings
Positive tags
Hero archetypes
Heroine archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
Themes
Synopsis
"Academic rivals portrayed to perfection… An all-time top favorite." —Chloe Gong, #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights and Our Violent Ends "Utterly unique, thought-provoking, and wonderfully written." —Gloria Chao, author of American Panda and Rent a Boyfriend In this genre-bending , speculative YA debut, a Chinese American girl monetizes her strange new invisibility powers by discovering and selling her wealthy classmates’ most scandalous secrets. 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.
Is If You Could See the Sun appropriate for my child?
Suitable for most readers 13 and up.
A Chinese American scholarship student at an elite Beijing boarding school gains invisibility powers and uses them to spy on wealthy classmates for money, leading to moral dilemmas as tasks escalate from gossip to crimes.
What to know going in
This book has mild violence, no sexual content, and mild language. Content notes include class struggle, manipulation, and deception.
Who'll love this
Teens will be hooked by the premise of using invisibility powers to uncover secrets at an exclusive boarding school, plus the academic rivals dynamic.