A review by celeste329
If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Let me just start by saying that this book is exquisite in portraying and conveying emotions - I particularly enjoyed each and every scene with Alice and her family, showcasing their interactions, hopes, values, etc. I also liked how Alice's relationship evolved over time, specifically her and Chanel's friendship (I was hoping for more shenanigans with them, but alas). I also liked the overall message and themes of the book. 

Now, onto some gripes: i) I just didn't quite enjoy the romance side-plot (I think it's more a side-plot than subplot since it's made obvious from the start). I just thought the whole relationship side-plot was rather predictable and in some ways did not fully make sense (given that we only get Alice's perspective and the initial feeling that for her, it was mainly a competition, whereas Henry seemed fine to just go along with her); ii) the technical aspect of
completely overhauling an app, that originally took about 4 days to be made, in a few hours. Not just a patch mind-you, a complete rebranding (is that even possible?)
; and iii) the lack of detail in seeing Alice's inner turmoil about accepting the last job -
she went from deleting compromising pics, to stealing some random test answers to full-blown assisting in kidnapping and her turmoil was kind of toned down a little. Would have loved to see more about her weighing pros and cons, and really battling with the idea and whether the reward was truly worth it.
 

Overall, a solid read that totally did not make me cry at times (spoiler: it kinda did XD) 
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