LOOKING FOR JJ
Anne Cassidy
Graphia Books
Fiction
Hardcover: 9780152061906
Paperback: 9780152066383
336 pages

This month I review a new novel by Gail Giles titled RIGHT BEHIND YOU, about a boy who lives in secret and is trying to resurrect a normal life in the wake of a horrible crime he committed years before. I also had a chance to read and review LOOKING FOR JJ, about a girl who is living under an assumed name and trying to create a normal life for herself in the wake of a horrible crime she committed as a child. Sounds familiar, right?

Actually, the surprising thing about these two novels (which have been published in such close proximity) is how dissimilar they feel. RIGHT BEHIND YOU is both less suspenseful and more psychological than LOOKING FOR JJ. Its protagonist's crime is explained in the very first chapter, his motivations are never in question and the main source of conflict is whether or not the main character will be able to overcome his own self-destructive urges in his quest for a new life.

However, LOOKING FOR JJ (which was first published in the United Kingdom in 2004), is both more sympathetic to its heroine and more invested in exploring the circumstances that might cause a very young girl to commit a truly horrific crime. We first meet Alice Tully, a 17-year-old who works at the local coffee shop, lives with her kindly guardian Rosie and enjoys spending time with her boyfriend while waiting to begin university in a year.

Only gradually do readers learn that Alice is actually Jennifer Johnson (known as JJ), a recently released convict who has spent several years in prison following a terrible crime she committed as a young girl. The exact nature of JJ's crime is kept a secret, revealed only gradually through flashbacks that make known JJ's dysfunctional relationship with her mother, her troubled friendships and her increasingly violent behavior in the wake of a series of disappointments. Meanwhile, in the present, Alice and Rosie are desperate to keep her new identity intact, to protect Alice from the prying eyes and devastating words of the tabloid newspapers and give her a chance at a new start.

LOOKING FOR JJ is structured as a more typical suspense novel than RIGHT BEHIND YOU, as readers' sense of sympathy for JJ and horror at her actions mount simultaneously. Some American readers initially may have a difficult time grasping the extent of the viciousness of the British tabloid press and the hold it has over Alice's new life, but soon they will gain an understanding.

Lacking the interiority, emphasis on therapy and focus on anger that formed much of the plot of RIGHT BEHIND YOU, LOOKING FOR JJ nevertheless can be fruitfully read side by side with Giles's book. Both novels raise similar questions about the ability of young offenders to make fresh starts, if it's ever possible to have a truly clean slate. The startlingly different ways in which their authors raise these questions, and how they answer them, result in rich, dramatically contrasting reading experiences that could be the focus of interesting small group discussions.

    --- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

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