Jennifer Mathieu Books in Order

Jennifer Mathieu writes young adult and adult novels about people trying to speak up, find their footing, and make sense of the worlds around them. Her stories often begin in schools, families, or close-knit communities, then follow the pressure points that can change a life.

She is the daughter of immigrants, with a Chilean father and a Cuban mother. At Northwestern University, she found a community where talking about books, politics, and feminism felt normal, and where she began making zines to share with friends.

Mathieu trained as a journalist at Northwestern's Medill School. That training taught her how to research, organize a deadline, ask questions, and take feedback without treating every draft like a precious object.

Texas became home after college.

She worked as a reporter before realizing that daily news work was not the right long-term fit. In 2005, she moved into teaching English, and the young adult books her students were reading helped point her toward fiction for teen readers.

Teaching gave Mathieu a close view of the concerns that fill her books: friendship, social rules, family expectations, grief, pressure, and the gap between how young people are seen and who they really are. She has worked as a teacher for two decades, bringing the texture of school life to the page without making her novels feel like lectures.

Her first novel, The Truth About Alice, arrived in 2014. It follows a girl caught in a cruel web of school gossip, using several voices to show how quickly rumor becomes accepted as fact. Readers who like sharp, compact stories about social cruelty and accountability often start there.

Then came Moxie, the 2017 novel about Vivian Carter, a quiet Texas teen who creates an anonymous feminist zine after growing tired of sexism at school. The book grew from Mathieu's longtime interest in zines and riot grrrl culture, and it was later adapted into a film directed by Amy Poehler.

Her other YA novels move through very different corners of teen life. Devoted follows a homeschooled girl questioning the narrow future laid out by her religious community. Afterward looks at trauma and recovery after a kidnapping. The Liars of Mariposa Island traces family secrets across generations, while Bad Girls Never Say Die reworks the social tensions of The Outsiders through a group of girls in 1960s Houston. In Down Came the Rain, two teens deal with the emotional aftermath of climate disaster.

In 2024, Mathieu published her first novel for adults, The Faculty Lounge, set among the teachers, staff, and administrators of a Texas high school. She lives in Houston with her family and continues to write alongside her life in education.