Looking for JJ

Looking for JJ is a young adult thriller by Anne Cassidy about a British teen struggling to piece together her life despite a dark secret: As a child, she murdered another child. First published in 2004, the novel was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Book Award and won the Booktrust Teenage Prize. Narrated from the offender’s perspective, the novel explores themes of guilt, justice, and forgiveness.

Seventeen-year-old Alice Tully lives with her foster mother, Rosie. Alice has a job at a local coffee shop and is dating a boy named Frankie who attends a local university. Alice is obsessed with reading about Jennifer Jones, a young girl who killed her friend 10 years ago. We soon find out that Alice is Jennifer Jones under a different name.

Recently released from a rehabilitation facility, Alice is paranoid that someone will discover her identity and that she won’t be able to live a normal life. When Alice mails a birthday card from a local post office to her estranged mother, a detective comes to the area looking for Jennifer Jones. When the detective comes to the coffee shop, Alice is too scared to go to work and takes a week off, feigning illness. She also notices her photograph in missing person pictures around town.

Alice, Rosie, and Jill Newton—the woman in charge of Alice’s case—hatch a plan to ward off media attention, along with Patricia “Pat” Coffey, a woman who works at Monksgrove, the facility where Alice lived after she was found guilty. They leak news to the press that Jennifer Jones has been placed with an English family in Holland. A few days later, their new next-door neighbor Sara Wright reveals that she is a reporter with a national newspaper and has been ingratiating herself with them to get details for her story. Alice and Rosie are shocked and afraid. Sara encourages Alice to give her an exclusive interview, promising that she won’t reveal her location or identifying details if she does so.

Alice’s memories of her childhood and her crime make up much of the novel’s second part in the form of flashbacks. Jennifer (Alice) never knew her father, and her mother, Carol Jones, makes a career in modeling. While Carol never lacked for work when she was younger, job offers dwindle as she’s aged, and out of necessity, she drifts into pornography and prostitution. Carol leaves Jennifer home alone, fosters her out to friends and acquaintances, or abandons her for months with her grandmother, who doesn’t hide her resentment about it. Due to the constant upheaval, Jennifer has no friends. She starts responding to the unstable situation with violent outbursts.

Jennifer longs to be with her absent mother. When she’s 10, they move to the town of Berwick Waters, where it appears they might settle into a normal family life together. Jennifer goes to school and finally forms friendships with two other neighborhood girls, Michelle and Lucy. Michelle and Jennifer develop a combative, conflicted friendship but join forces to occasionally bully Lucy, who is younger. Other times, Jennifer treats Lucy kindly.

One day in May, the three girls set about searching for Lucy’s brother’s hideout in the nearby woods. What they find is little more than a hole in the ground filled with collected items. Enraged when she sees a photo of her mother in the stash, Jennifer pushes Lucy into the lake, which she immediately regrets, and rescues her. Lucy is upset and runs home.

Michelle is furious: She’s been charged with watching Lucy for the day, and this episode will get her in trouble. Michelle lashes out by smearing Jennifer’s mother as a prostitute and telling Jennifer they’re no longer friends. Jennifer panics at the prospect of losing her only close friend and impulsively hits Michelle’s head with a bat lying in the fort. When she realizes Michelle is dead, she tries to hide her body, but the truth is soon discovered.

Back in the present, Alice visits Frankie and his family, and they receive her well. The next day, Jill tells Alice that her identity has been leaked to the tabloids, and the story will likely be published tomorrow. Shocked and afraid, Alice confesses her identity to Frankie, who is confused and angry. Reporters surround Rosie’s house, and Alice is secretly transported to a safe house a few towns away; Alice is devastated when she learns that she won’t be able to live with Rosie anymore. In the fall, Alice, now going by Kate Rickman, moves into her dorm room at college. She can no longer contact Rosie or Frankie. Her new foster parents help her move into the dorm and leave her to unpack. Alice is melancholy and reflective, ruminating on the past events of her life and anxious about things to come.