Looking for JJ is an unsettling murder novel thoughtfully crafted by Anne Cassidy which trails the new life of Alice Tully, a girl whose childhood ended 6 years earlier when she murdered her best friend. Alice is given a second chance at rebuilding her life and forgetting her past, forgetting the girl who killed her best friend, forgetting her former self; Jennifer Jones. Alice’s life after her release from jail had looked promising until a puzzling detective came to the small town of Croyden looking for JJ. As the story unfolds Cassidy brilliantly immerses the reader deeper and deeper into her novel, slowly uncovering details from the day Jennifer Jones committed her crime, and her dysfunctional childhood. Cassidy carefully places Alice’s flashbacks to her painful life as Jennifer Jones to allow the reader to understand exactly how a ten year old could do such a horrible thing and Alice, or JJ becomes a character who is easy to sympathize with. The story never sleeps and continues to progress throughout the book when Alice is betrayed by her mother and threatened to change her identity again. The story is described in such realistic detail that I was fully engrossed in the moment and I felt like I was there, but not in such detail that I grew bored.
The novel is written in the 3rd person which suits it well. Being an onlooker, the reader is able to discover things that would otherwise not be mentioned in only Alice’s opinion, which is an important aspect of the book. Anne Cassidy constructed the gripping story in a non-chronological order, opening in Alice’s current life and introducing flashbacks every now and then between important stages of Alice’s existence.
I enjoyed reading Looking for JJ as well as being nervous each time I picked up the book because I knew that I would be disturbed, but that was one of the things that I valued most about it. The story made me contemplate many genuine themes in modern day society like child abuse as well as how the media treats criminals.
Rated: 4.5/5 - "It fully lived up to my standards after everything I had heard about it and I recommend it to any young adult who appreciates dark and obscure fictions."
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