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nosferasu 's review for:
I Am Not Jessica Chen
by Ann Liang
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
As I experienced with This Time It's Real (2023), Ann Liang seemed to have composed this novel with one message to convey and decided to cram several other messages as she was nearing the finale. Even the overarching theme—the definition and parameters of "enough" for someone coming from an underserved minority group—was half-baked at best, as the three characters representing "enough" were all one-dimensional: Jenna Chen, whose "enough" boiled down to achieving the same things as her model student cousin; Jessica Chen, being the most intelligent person in the room; and Aaron Cai, "avenging" his mother's death by becoming a physician skilled enough to treat the illness that killed his mother. Jenna Chen was so deep in self-pity that at times her first-person narration of the story became very annoying to follow. It didn't help that the narrative's attempt at dispelling Jenna Chen's spiel of self-pity only manifested in Aaron Cai beginning to call her out for that mindset around chapter 15—after over 70% of the novel had gone by. Jessica Chen's character, whom I believe was planned to be dismantled via her diary entries, remained unchanged because the novel spent more time snooping into Jenna Chen's mind than the entries of Jessica Chen's actual diary, which Jenna Chen accessed while living in the body of Jessica Chen. On top of that, Aaron Cai was so one-dimensional he is better described as a deus ex machina conjured to trigger Jenna Chen into character development. He was introduced as the person with the most tragic background in the trio, but I didn't get to really experience him as a character with a tragic background because Jenna Chen kept spoon-feeding the reader with facts about how Aaron grew up in his neglectful father's dysfunctional household. One could argue that this shallow way of writing Aaron Cai speaks for Ann Liang's unfamiliarity with a struggling household, but then there's Alice Sun from If You Could See the Sun (2021).
I'm also not sure what Ann Liang was trying to achieve cramming attempts at dissecting issues such as classism, the model minority paradigm, and the commodification of a student's life in the education business industry near the end of the novel. It's frustrating to follow Jenna Chen as she reeled back from experiencing those topics only to never even think of her experiences again throughout the entire novel. What's worse is that Jenna Chen was so close to turning out a villainess adamant on stealing Jessica Chen's life until she experienced the racist and misogynistic root of the model minority paradigm, which drove her to rescind her "new life" as Jessica Chen. That behaviour didn't prove any development of Jenna Chen's character; if anything, it only cemented her character as a weak-willed self-pitying person who flees the scene at the smallest hint of hardship—which contradicted Aaron's spoon-feeding the reader about Jenna's character as an obsessive person for whom even stealing another person's life was not enough. The ending can't even be called anti-climatic considering Jessica Chen readily accepted that her cousin practically stole her life and couldn't even perform it well with no protest whatsoever. Jessica Chen's reaction to the issue with her academic integrity was, again, spoon-fed to us by Jenna Chen, so Jessica's character remained largely un-deconstructed, which deviated from the premise of this novel.
If you're here from This Time It's Real or I Hope This Doesn't Find You: it's basically the same story with different characters set in the USA instead of mainland China.
If you're here from If You Could See the Sun: don't. Or please do, but place the bar on the floor.
I'm also not sure what Ann Liang was trying to achieve cramming attempts at dissecting issues such as classism, the model minority paradigm, and the commodification of a student's life in the education business industry near the end of the novel. It's frustrating to follow Jenna Chen as she reeled back from experiencing those topics only to never even think of her experiences again throughout the entire novel. What's worse is that Jenna Chen was so close to turning out a villainess adamant on stealing Jessica Chen's life until she experienced the racist and misogynistic root of the model minority paradigm, which drove her to rescind her "new life" as Jessica Chen. That behaviour didn't prove any development of Jenna Chen's character; if anything, it only cemented her character as a weak-willed self-pitying person who flees the scene at the smallest hint of hardship—which contradicted Aaron's spoon-feeding the reader about Jenna's character as an obsessive person for whom even stealing another person's life was not enough. The ending can't even be called anti-climatic considering Jessica Chen readily accepted that her cousin practically stole her life and couldn't even perform it well with no protest whatsoever. Jessica Chen's reaction to the issue with her academic integrity was, again, spoon-fed to us by Jenna Chen, so Jessica's character remained largely un-deconstructed, which deviated from the premise of this novel.
If you're here from This Time It's Real or I Hope This Doesn't Find You: it's basically the same story with different characters set in the USA instead of mainland China.
If you're here from If You Could See the Sun: don't. Or please do, but place the bar on the floor.
Content Warnings
Minor: Body shaming, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Classism