By Any Other Name

The young adult novel By Any Other Name (2013), written by Laura Jarratt, follows the travails of a teenager whose family is placed into the witness protection program after a horrific incident. As we watch the complexities she faces adjusting to her new life with a new identity, the novel reveals what really happened in flashbacks. The last part of the narrative is a crime thriller, as the protagonist’s past catches up with her in a terrifying way.

Our protagonist and first-person narrator is fifteen years old, but she has only been named Holly Latham for a short time. A few months ago, she was Louisa, and her life with her parents and her younger sister, Katya, was happily filled with friends, vacations to other countries, and summers spent in a cottage on the ocean. However, after Louisa witnessed a crime, and its three perpetrators tried to kidnap and kill her to stop her from testifying against them at a trial, the family has been placed under witness protection.

Louisa picked a new name for herself from a baby name book, as did her parents, obeying the instructions to choose “nothing that would stand out, nothing that would link me to the past.” However, her sister’s high-functioning autism requires a consistent and predictable routine – it would be impossible for Katya to suddenly assume a different name. The family settles for the similar-sounding “Katie” as a compromise.



With their new names, the family moves to a rural farming community where Holly has to start going to a new school in the middle of the year. She faces the typical struggles of someone trying to adjust to a completely different environment: settling into classes mid-way through, trying to figure out peer groups and how to fit into them, forming new friendships. All of this is much harder for Holly, who feels like an imposter in her own skin – after all, she has been told to keep all details about her life before a secret, so she can’t reveal her interests or life experiences to any would-be friends. At the same time, her life is tremendously complicated by the fact that she is always looking over her shoulder, worried that the men who still haunt her nightmares will find her and her family.

One place where Holly doesn’t feel like a victim but like someone who can help another person is in her relationship with Katie. Super smart, Katie is liable to act out in surprising ways when the daily routine she has grown used to is disrupted. Because people don’t always immediately understand that some of her behavior stems from her autism, Katie is the recipient of judgmental attitudes from people in the town – though Holly does her best to intervene.

Angry about her situation, Holly at first connects with the new school’s mean clique, focusing at least some of her antipathy on Joe, a boy clad in black clothes who has an off-putting scowl on his face that makes Holly nickname him Emo Boy. One day in their English class, Holly and Joe get into a long argument about a war poem, and something about Joe’s passionate, sad, and highly intelligent criticisms makes Holly question her initial judgment of him. Although she would like to get to know him better, she is wary of getting close to anyone – what if by doing that she puts the person in danger.



Still, Holly and Joe are clearly attracted to one another, and eventually, they start dating. Once Holly meets Joe’s family, she sees that the source of some of his anger and way of presenting himself to the world is the result of what happened to Joe’s older brother Matt. Matt was a soldier, whose military career was cut short when he lost his leg. As a result, Matt feels depressed and like less of a man because he can no longer be as productive on the family farm – his hopelessness has rubbed off on Joe to some degree.

Although Holly seems as though she is settling into her new life, internally she can’t stop being furious that this has happened to her. Disregarding the many warnings that she has heard from the witness protection agents over the course of the last few months, she decides to communicate with her former best friend, sending a few text messages in contravention of explicit instructions never to do that.

Soon, Katie warns Holly about a white van that she has seen on their street – because she craves order, Katie is very good at picking up on things that are out of place or different in some way. Nevertheless, Holly, ignoring her sister’s alarm, is blindsided when the criminals from her past once again try to abduct her. However, this time, Holly isn’t going to be a helpless victim – she describes her instinct to fight taking over as she makes herself as hard a target as possible. Then, just in time, Joe and Matt charge in with their farm shotguns, rescuing Holly before anything terrible can happen.