PRE-PUBLICATION Review of Advanced Reader Copy by Hayden

Review date: February 1, 2021 - Publish date: February 2, 2021

Review by Hayden

This is Not the Jess Show by Anna Carey

This Is Not the Jess Show, written by Anna Carey, is a newly-published young adult thriller novel. It is a very fast-paced book with lots of action, written in the first person point of view of Jess Flynn. The plot-twisting story begins with seventeen-year-old Jess Flynn simply living through her junior year of high school.

Jess is a seemingly average high school student in the ‘90s. Her daily life consists of dealing with strict parents, a new crush on her old friend, and her sister’s rare blood disease. However, things start to get very weird at school. She hears strange chanting when she wakes up in the morning, and half the school is absent from a strange flu epidemic. Suddenly, Jess’s own dog seems off, and a tiny device with an Apple logo has fallen from her friend’s backpack. At this point in the novel, the story completely changes direction as Jess starts to pick up and put together all of the unnatural things in her town.