A review by cielosiluminado
I Am Not Jessica Chen by Ann Liang

emotional relaxing sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

For anyone who’s ever wished they could be someone else.
— Dedication, p. v

controversial hot take? this book was highly raved about but i was kind of disappointed. i didn’t hate the story, i was kind of excited to read a freak friday-esque retelling (?), but this was underdeveloped and it all fell flat for me in the end.

i’m not asian, but i’m latina and disabled; i was once one of the jessica chen’s in my school. being the model student was exhausting; we’re not valued for anything else but filling the diversity quota and boosting the school’s academic rank. as the model student, we were expected to follow the rules and be quiet, about everything. we were not allowed to falter, to question anything. we were machines to these institutions. that was the only purpose we were to serve. having to deal with all of that while also having an inferiority complex? oooh, boy. i was once a jenna chen as well.

It’s the mantra we've all been fed since we were kids: study hard, get into a good school, be better than everyone else, and you'll have a better life.
— Chapter 14, p. 224

A model student causes no trouble. A model student makes no noise. A model student gives everything they have and asks for nothing. They simply keep their head down and study and get the best scores on behalf of the school, and then graduate as valedictorian, with the perfect winning streak, and they head to the best universities in the world to train even harder to become a model citizen, so they can continue to be good. They’re so good that nobody bothers to notice when something’s wrong. They’re so good they’re an afterthought. They’re so good they might as well not exist, except to be used as evidence that success is possible, that the system is perfectly sound, that anyone who struggles can only blame themselves.
— Chapter 17, pp. 265-66

deeply connecting to both characters was trippy and made me look deep into my inner self. valuing oneself solely on academic achievements was incredibly relatable to me, but as an adult, i can now acknowledge how it was an unhealthy obsession that took a lot of time and care to overcome in my young adulthood. sometimes, one never truly does... especially when one’s upbringing plays a big part into how much value academic achievements are correlated to success in one’s life later on. i think these types of beliefs and pressures are more common in BIPOC and disabled families and communities. to succeed, we’re to work 5x as hard to make even a fraction of what an able-bodied white person does to be taken seriously, and even then sometimes... we never aren’t.

anyways! don’t get me wrong, the writing was the good, classic ann liang style. i really liked how complex and different the characters were. the romance, although not a big part of the story, was also cute and i lowkey wished it was expanded upon; but like most of ann liang books, her stories don’t fully center on the romance part.

but overall, the book and its message were pretty shallow and preachy in terms of ‘nobody is perfect’, ‘everyone has their own problems’, ‘love and accept your strengths and flaws’, etc. yes, i know this was a young adult book, but the execution felt even more juvenile than a typical YA book. the message was just too repetitive, especially in the middle of the book where it dragged on.