I Am Not Jessica Chen

I Am Not Jessica Chen (2025) is a novel by best-selling Chinese-Australian author Ann Liang. The story follows Jenna Chen, a high schooler, who wishes she could be more like her brilliant and beautiful cousin, Jessica Chen. Jenna’s wish is granted when she wakes up one day in Jessica’s body. I Am Not Jessica Chen explores themes of Navigating Comparison and Expectation, The Relationship Between Appearance and Identity, and The Impact of Success on Personal Relationships. Other works by Liang include If You Could See the Sun (2022), which won the Reading Prize in the Young Adult category, and her debut adult novel, A Song to Drown Rivers (2024).

This study guide uses the 2025 HarperCollins, Kindle Edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of racism.

Plot Summary

Jenna Chen, a high-schooler, receives a rejection notice from Harvard University. She is disappointed and heartbroken, especially when at a family dinner that evening, she discovers that her cousin, Jessica Chen, has been accepted. Jenna’s parents constantly compare her to her smarter and more conventionally attractive cousin, which makes Jenna envious of Jessica. That night, she wishes upon a shooting star that she could be Jessica.

The next morning, Jenna discovers to her shock that she has woken up in Jessica’s body. She gets over the initial shock when everyone around her, from Jessica’s friends to her teachers and all of her peers at school, constantly heap admiration and praise on her. The only person who isn’t completely enthralled by “Jessica” is Aaron Cai, a close friend of Jenna and Jessica’s families whom the girls have grown up alongside.

Also brilliant like Jessica, Aaron is freshly returned from a year-long medical program for high school students in Paris. Aaron is the only one who clearly remembers and is concerned about “Jenna’s” disappearance. As Jenna soon discovers, she appears to be fading from everyone else’s memories, including that of her own parents.

Despite this, Jenna initially slips into Jessica’s life with great delight, enjoying the comforts and luxuries that come with being the daughter of her much-wealthier uncle and aunt and other people’s constant awe of her. However, Jenna also slowly begins to see the challenges that come with being someone like Jessica: She finds herself struggling to keep up with the numerous intensive classes Jessica has enrolled in, and her teachers’ and classmates’ expectations of constant perfection from her at school begin to take a toll.

Simultaneously, Jenna begins to receive emails and notes from an anonymous sender, claiming to know what she has done. Jenna eventually realizes that these are meant for Jessica and wonders what her cousin is hiding. When Jenna reads Jessica’s journal, she is shocked to discover self-deprecating criticism Jessica often directs toward herself; she is exhausted and weighed down by other people’s constant expectations of perfection from her. Jenna also finds an entry in which Jessica regrets having done something wrong in a moment of stress.

As time passes and Jenna continues to fade from other people’s memories, Aaron grows increasingly concerned and asks “Jessica” about her cousin’s whereabouts. Jenna finally confides the truth in him, revealing that she has also looked for Jessica, but can’t seem to find her cousin anywhere. Jenna also tells Aaron about the notes “Jessica” has been receiving. Together, they resolve to get to the bottom of both mysteries: Jessica’s disappearance, and the identity of the note-sender.

As Aaron and Jenna try to work out the former, he wonders why Jenna would have wished to swap places with her cousin at all. Jenna, who has had a crush on Aaron for years, reveals that she hates her life and herself. Jenna had previously confessed her feelings for Aaron, almost kissing him a year ago; however, he backed away and seemingly rejected her, leaving for Paris just a week after. Upon hearing how Jenna views herself, Aaron confesses that he has feelings for her as well. He only backed away because he believed that Jenna, who is constantly dissatisfied with what she has, would grow bored of him and he wouldn’t be able to handle the heartbreak.

By comparing handwriting samples of their classmates, Jenna and Aaron figure out the identity of the note-sender—Cathy Liu, who has constantly come second to Jessica at school. When “Jessica” confronts Cathy about the notes, Jenna learns that Jessica stole one of Cathy’s thesis ideas for an assignment; the teacher immediately assumed Cathy was the guilty party and didn’t give Cathy a chance to explain. A stunned Jenna promises to make things right.

Meanwhile, Aaron divines that for Jenna and Jessica to swap back, Jenna needs to wish for it to happen with all her heart, possibly under the same circumstances of the first night—with a shooting star. Jenna confesses that she doesn’t want her old life back, as she deeply desires the validation and praise she is receiving as Jessica. However, after discovering how she has practically disappeared from the memories of everyone around her, Jenna begins to regret her choice. She discovers a journal entry by Jessica, penned on the night of the Harvard acceptance letter, claiming that Jessica didn’t want to be herself anymore.

The next morning, “Jessica” gets into an argument with one of her classmates and stands up for herself in an unprecedented way. Jenna is dismayed when “Jessica” is immediately reprimanded for behaving in a manner unbefitting a model student. To her further heartbreak, she discovers that even Aaron doesn’t remember her anymore. Desperate to find her cousin and get her own life back, Jenna learns of a meteor shower happening that night and climbs up a nearby mountainside to wish for a swap upon a shooting star again. She falls asleep on the mountaintop and wakes up as herself, with Jessica standing over her.

The two cousins embrace and trade stories. Jessica, who was trapped in a void somewhere, describes having witnessed all the events that took place during her “disappearance” even as she grew increasingly comfortable with her non-existence and stopped wanting to return at all. Back home, Jenna is thrilled and relieved to discover that her parents remember her again, as does Aaron. Jenna tells him that she knows what she wants now and will never get bored of him. The two kiss and begin a relationship. Jessica resolves to tell the truth about what she did to Cathy, willing to face the consequences. The book ends with Jenna, finally content with her life and who she is, reflecting on how she has nothing else to wish for except what she already has.