43 pages 1 hour read

Anne Cassidy

Looking for JJ

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2004

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Character Analysis

Jennifer Jones/Alice Tully/Kate Rickman

Jennifer, also known as Alice and eventually Kate, is a troubled young woman with a difficult past. As a young girl, Alice killed her friend Michelle. Growing up, Alice had an unstable upbringing and bounced back and forth between staying with her mother, grandmother, and social services. From an early age, she attempted to cope with instability and neglect by lashing out with violence, killing a dog, and striking another girl on the head with a recorder. Jennifer is not inherently evil, but through a combination of bad circumstances and bad luck, she comes to commit an evil act.

 

In the present, Jennifer goes by Alice and has relocated to a new home with a loving foster mother. Although Alice tries to put the events of the past behind her, she cannot escape them. Alice is an introspective and anxious young woman who is uncertain of her identity and unsure of how to navigate the world. While she can form close relationships with her foster mother Rosie and her boyfriend Frankie, she is all too aware that her new life could be shattered at any moment. Alice is neither wholly good nor wholly evil; the reader receives insight into why she acts the way she does and how her history has impacted her character.