Have you wanted to be invisible? I know I have. Here are a couple different teenagers born with invisibility (the not-able-to-turn-visible-at-will kind of invisibility) who know it can be either a gift… or a curse.

Transparent by Natalie Whipple

“The doctors don’t really know how it works, except that the mutation affects my pigment. They have a few theories, but they can’t study invisible blood or do surgery.”

For Fiona, she was gifted, as most everyone is, with a mutation. This mutation can range from her mom’s telekinesis or her brother’s ability to change how he smells. No one has ever seen her. Not even Fiona herself…

“All I know about myself is that I’m five foot eight, a hundred and forty pounds, and the owner of one rocking wardrobe. When all anyone sees is your clothing, it’s important.”

…which makes her the perfect thief for her father’s villainous schemes. When her father tries to force Fiona to kill someone, her mother knows he has gone too far. They run away to a small town in the middle of nowhere. For the first time, Fiona has a chance for a semi-normal life and realities such as friendship, that aren’t easy to make when on high alert for discovery. Because she knows her father will never stop looking, an invisible girl can’t hide forever.

Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan

“I can never be seen, no matter how hard I try. I can be touched, but only if I concentrate. And I can always be heard, if I choose to speak. These, I suppose, are the rules of the curse.”

For Stephen, he was cursed into invisibility. He doesn’t quite know why or how to break it. If his mother knew, she never shared the information with him. She was his entire world, until she died almost a year ago. No one has ever seen him. Not even Stephen himself when he looks in the mirror. Stephen figures he’s alone, with no one else knowing of his existence besides a father known only as a phone number. So Stephen is very surprised when his new neighbor, Elizabeth, can not only see him, but treats him like a person.

“In the minutes that followed, I realize it isn’t that the curse had been broken. It’s that she’s found a way around it.”

For Elizabeth, told in alternating point of view chapters, she just wants to blend in, protect her brother, and work on writing her comics. When she meets Stephen, a boy no one else can see, she thinks she’s going crazy. But the truth that they’ll discover in the secret world of curses and spells goes deeper than either ever imagined.

-Nicole G., 10th grade