I Am Not Jessica Chen is the fifth book by Ann Liang, a bestselling and critically acclaimed Australian fiction author for both adults and young adults.
It is a prime example that highlights the author’s strengths in (a) knowing who her readers are and what they want, and (b) writing stories that make them feel “seen”.
The novel follows 17-year-old Jenna Chen, whose application to every Ivy League university is rejected, much to her own and her family’s disappointment.
In contrast, her cousin Jessica Chen is infinitely smarter and much more sophisticated and successful, a perfect student that is every top-ranking university’s dream recruit, especially Harvard.
Jenna loves her cousin, but she cannot help feeling inferior, envious and jealous whenever praises for Jessica’s brilliance and multiple achievements feel like reminders of her own mediocrity.
Bitter and desperately needing a breakthrough, Jenna wishes she could become Jessica – only for that wish to come true overnight.
This “body swap” trope sees Jenna tentatively experimenting and then fully embracing Jessica’s life.
However, she soon realises being the top student in a highly-competitive academic institution is not quite what she imagined: “You have to prove yourself over and over, and when the glory for your most recent achievement expires, as it must, as it always will, you have to start again, but with more eyes trained on you, more people waiting for the day when your talent withers, and your discipline weakens, and your charm wears away.”
“Success is only meant to be rented out, borrowed in small doses at a time, never to be owned completely, no matter what price you’re willing to pay for it.”
Further complicating Jenna’s situation is her shocking discovery that people around her – including her parents and especially her love interest Aaron – are slowly but surely forgetting who Jenna Chen is.
In a clever twist from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), Jenna finds her self-portrait increasingly erased, “as if painted over with dark acrylic… It’s a self-portrait of a stranger, someone unrecognisable, someone who might not even exist anymore”.
What makes this story outstanding is its in-depth investigation of a young person’s raw but fierce ambition for power, fame and glory.
Set against a deliberately universal background, Jenna’s frustration and despair at her own seemingly lack of talents is felt by anyone and everyone who has ever wished they could be someone else.
Relentlessly and ruthlessly, the story explores what success means and what sacrifices one is willing to make to achieve it.
More importantly, it examines the nature and significance of jealousy and its profound impact on young people’s perception of themselves and others.
Combining these and interlacing them with a desperate yearning for love – another universal theme – the author presents an intense and urgent sense of morality concerning right vs wrong, consideration vs indifference, selfishness vs selflessness, and desire vs self-preservation.
Highly recommended.
