If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang

The Quick Cut: A teen girl who is the only scholarship kid at a wealthy international school uses her new invisibility powers to make enough money to pay her remaining school fees. Chaos ensues as the jobs get more complex. A Real Review: Thank you to Inkyard Press for providing the ARC for an honest review. Life can be extremely unfair. Much of a person's success can be based on wealth and connections, neither of which can be easily gained. It's a setup that helps the upper class and makes it harder for the lower classes to get ahead. For Alice, it's a reality she is fighting against so she can stay at her school. Alice comes from a working class family, but goes to a prestigious international school. Being the solo scholarship student at Airington, it means she spends all her time around high class kids with access to anything and everything they want. When Alice finds out that her parents can no longer afford to pay her remaining tuition fees, she pledges to do what she has to in order to pay the fees herself. The solution? Using her new invisibility powers to do tasks for fellow classmates for cash. Will this solve the problem? Or create all new ones? This book's description intrigued me from the outset, but the actual book itself was so much more amazing than I anticipated! Alice is such a relatable character and the way her invisibility powers show up are believable enough that you think it could really happen. It all works together to make for a book that you can't get enough of. Alice is smart, but has to work so much harder than her classmates to keep what she's got. Seeing her do whatever it takes to stay at the school that can provide her an advantage is relatable to anyone who has felt similar pressures. When life doesn't hand you access, you have to find a way to make your own. The system works against you too, so it can feel like you're aiming for the impossible. Alice manages to navigate that struggle while remaining likeable as a character, which is NOT easy. Her tasks become increasingly wrong and unethical. Alice partners with a classmate named Henry, her rival when it comes to grades at school. Seeing these two go through a journey together relationship wise will make you root for their success and understanding. Henry might be a part of the elite, but Alice shows him what it's like to be on the outside, which gives him a new perspective. These two play off each other in an adorable way and really do help one another better understand the world together. It's in many ways the heart of the story. A magical realism story that will have you rooting for it's character's success. My rating: 5 out of 5