A New Novel From the Author of ‘When You Trap a Tiger’

JENNIFER CHAN IS NOT ALONE
By Tae Keller

Mallory Moss is aware of what it takes to outlive center faculty. You will need to slot in. You will need to embrace the established order. You may’t, below any circumstances, be bizarre.

However Jennifer Chan, the brand new lady, is precisely that, in accordance with Mallory. She’s bizarre.

Jennifer is obsessive about aliens. She says precisely what she thinks, even to the preferred boy at school. She’d moderately be friendless than faux.

Jennifer shouts to the world — actually — that she believes in U.F.O.s. She retains notebooks filled with her findings and theories. She suspects there are well-intentioned aliens who need to talk with people, and she or he needs to be the primary human to contact them.

Mallory feels secondhand embarrassment for Jennifer. However she’s irritated at her, too.

“It didn’t appear truthful for her to disregard all of the issues that mattered,” Mallory tells us. Issues like being well-liked.

So Mallory and her pals resolve they should train Jennifer a lesson. They need to show to the brand new lady — or maybe to themselves — that she’s no higher than the remainder of them.

Their bullying escalates to a disturbing crescendo.

Mallory is racked with guilt, however she’s not motivated to do something about it till Jennifer goes lacking (after leaving a observe saying she has run away).

This disappearance serves as the inspiration for “Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone,” Tae Keller’s first novel since successful the 2021 Newbery Medal for “When You Entice a Tiger.”

Mallory doesn’t know why Jennifer ran away, however she thinks there are two doable causes: “A type of is aliens. And the opposite is me.”

On the floor, Mallory looks as if an unlikely protagonist to align with readers. She’s a bully, in spite of everything. However Mallory will not be a surface-level character. She’s meticulously developed and sophisticated.

Sure, she’s a imply lady. No, she doesn’t deserve a move for her dangerous habits; nor does she get one. However for higher or worse, readers will see elements of themselves mirrored in her — particularly younger readers who’re determined to slot in and belong, who sweat below the relentless center faculty highlight.

When Mallory decides to seek for Jennifer herself, she approaches two much less well-liked ladies for assist. She instantly feels “a scorching flash of embarrassment,” adopted by disgrace: “I hate that there’s part of me that doesn’t need to be seen speaking to Kath and Ingrid.”

Readers will hate it, too. Maybe extra essential, they’ll hate that they perceive that a part of her.

Mallory teeters between self-awareness and self-rationalization, as most people do, and there are occasions while you need to attain into the pages and push her into motion. Mallory wonders if she’s an excellent particular person, and we marvel, too.

Though the novel is often didactic, it fruitfully presses readers to ask themselves, and others, what it means to be an excellent particular person in a imply world.

Keller’s skillful inside narration places us inside Mallory’s pores and skin, even when it makes us uncomfortable. Couched within the language and tempo of a thriller, it explores the grey areas through which all of us exist.

In the end, “Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone” will not be about Jennifer Chan in any respect, although her disappearance supplies a compelling thriller. It’s about an evolving lady who strives to be higher, regardless of many fumbles. She’s the imply lady who lives inside us all.