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.