Looking For JJ
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Product Description
Product Description
A gripping and emotionally searing novel from a talented author, Looking for JJ explores the circumstances and motives behind the murder of a child - by her friend. Six years later, JJ has now been released, and has a new identity. But is there any way that she can lead a "normal" life?
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chilling, beautifully written; definitely different,
By Sunfish (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Looking for JJ (Paperback)
Ignore what everyone's saying: this book isn't a murder mystery. It's the story of Alice Tully, seventeen years old, outwardly normal but a mess inside. Alice is deeply disturbed and insecure. At the age of ten, Alice murdered another child and was imprisoned. Newly released, she's trying to forget the incident, start a new life and cast off her old baggage. Somehow she can't get rid of her past trauma.In the book, we follow Alice through a short period of her life: she's working in a coffee shop, living with a carer/social worker and trying to avoid the press. The novel is interspersed with chilling vignettes from Alice's childhood. We see her neglected as a little girl, her depressed mother working sporadically as a model. We see her packed off to live with Gran, to live in a care-home, until finally Mum turns up and takes her away. We see her mother sinking lower and lower, and the child's tension building up and up - until the intense climax. This is a fine novel that questions our habit of labelling people. As a killer, Alice is labelled EVIL and UNREACHABLE. The author shows that she's not evil, not unreachable: just deeply miserable and confused. The labels only serve to alienate Alice. This novel made me resolve to take care of the children I might have, and never to neglect them. As Ms Cassidy so wisely points out, neglect in all its forms can be worse than any abuse.
26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A beautiful, harsh, tender, daring novel,
This review is from: Looking for JJ (Hardcover)
Every now and again something quite extraordinary is written that sweeps away any doubts you may have. This is the story about a child who, aged 10, killed another child, an appalling crime, and yet the child is not a monster. The plain, unadorned style is perfectly suited to the subject matter; the subject matter is handled so dexterously that you do not fear to read it, especially the crime itself, which is important. But most of all this is a masterly exercise in organisation and structure of material. There are a thousand ways this book could have been written badly and so ruined. Anne Cassidy avoids them all. I gave this book to my daughter, aged 15, when I finished. She hasn't been reading a lot lately, and she didn't read this: she DEVOURED it.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent novel for young adults,
By
This review is from: Looking for JJ (Paperback)
Looking for JJ is an excellent novel for young adults. It tell Alice Tully's story as she settles into life after being released from prison. She has been given a new identity and hopes to start a new life. At the start of the book this seems possible; she has a place at university and a loving, if slightly possessive, boyfriend, but things will never be easy for Alice Tully. In a series of flashbacks her crime is revealed - when she was only ten she murdered her best friend.
In this novel Anne Cassidy examines several themes. The friendship between the young girls is shown to be a battleground, with a power struggle at the centre. The different sets of parents show how selfish some parents can be, and what effect this can have. The media treatment of Alice show us just how vindictive they are, how they stop at nothing to get their story. The characterisation of the girls when they are young is excellent as is Alice's Mum; however her social work seems like a bit of a stereotype. However, I feel the main theme 'children killing children' is skimmed over, probably because there is so little evidence to go on or maybe because it is too horrific to think about, never mind write about. Having read this novel I did some research into child killers on the internet and it is a very disturbing topic, it is too easy to write these people of as freaks of nature, but they were all ordinary kids at one point and they have to live with the crimes they have commited. Overall, a good, thought-provoking novel.
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