Jocelyn, a character in the It Lives In The Woods book, is a student at Westchester High. She first appeared in Chapter 1.
Appearance
Jocelyn has long brown hair, brown eyes, and slightly tan skin. She wears a beige blouse under a light blue denim jacket. She is described as being tall, a full head taller than Ava.
In the bonus scene at the end of It Lives Beneath, her hair is shorter and she wears a black blouse under a purple denim jacket. She also has scars from Homecoming and is blind in one eye.
Personality
Similar to Britney and Cody, she is a bully who loves harassing other students. She is noticeably less intelligent than them and has trouble understanding sarcasm. She is a member of the Cross Country team. She is noticeably more violent than Britney or Cody and much more physically strong as she is able to quickly hold her own against Main Character and his/her friends.
She appears to be reformed, as in Chapter 13, she flips a table over to break the bottleneck out of the school hall and in turn sacrificing herself to the vine creatures. In Chapter 14, Connor states that she's alive but heavily injured.
Chapters
It Lives
It Lives In The Woods
- Chapter 1: Old Friends
- Chapter 2: What Are You Afraid of?
- Chapter 3: Sticks and Stones
- Chapter 4: What's Coming to You
- Chapter 5: Buckle Up
- Chapter 7: Party Fovors
- Chapter 8: Breakdown
- Chapter 12: Homecoming
- Chapter 13: Fight or Flight
- Chapter 14: In the Dark (Mentioned)
- Chapter 16: In Memoriam (Mentioned)
It Lives Beneath
- Chapter 17: Fishsticks (Determinant)
Relationships
Britney
Jocelyn and Britney are friends who enjoy bullying other students. However, Britney is put off by Jocelyn's low intelligence.
Cody
Jocelyn and Cody were best friends who enjoyed bullying other students physically. In Chapter 8, Cody's death clearly set her off as she began attacking everyone (except Noah).
Ava
Jocelyn often picks on Ava by calling her "Ava the Witch" for her fascination with the supernatural, which Jocelyn finds creepy. In turn, Ava makes sarcastic remarks to Jocelyn, prompting her to shove Ava to a locker. This causes Ava to unwittingly use her telekinesis for the first time by slamming a locker door.
Their mutual dislike degenerated into full-blown hatred after Cody's death, as Jocelyn accused Ava of killing Cody with her telekinesis and attacked her. In response, Ava used her telekinesis to choke Jocelyn but wasn't conscious when she did this.
Other Looks
Trivia
- As stated by Choices writer Kathleen, Jocelyn is a physically intimidating woman, a rare type of woman in fiction, shown when she pokes your neck bruise and kicks the locker she and Cody lock you in.
- Kathleen has also stated that she feels the humor Jocelyn's character brings is necessary in such a dark story.
- She is the first victim of Ava's telekinesis, given that a locker door whacked her in the face and gave her a bloody nose.
- Being attacked by crows appears to have caused her to develop ornithophobia, the fear of birds.
- Although she does not appear in the last chapter of the book, she is very much alive but is struggling to walk due to her injures from the vine creatures in Chapter 13.
- Her last name is revealed in Chapter 8.
- The writing for Jocelyn's character is inspired by the song "I Ran (So Far Away)" by A Flock of Sea Gulls.[1]
- She makes an appearance in a bonus scene at the end of It Lives Beneath, sporting scars on her face and appears to be blind in one eye. Connor wants to recruit her to be part of a group of people in Westchester and Pine Springs to battle The Power.
- She was told what happened on Homecoming was because of rabid dogs and spiked punch.
- She shares her forename with female Joss Park from The Billionaire's Baby.
- She shares the same surname as Bao Wu from the Baby Bump series.