Making the Right Choices

By Julie Duffin
December 2025 View more Books

Sometimes life takes you down an unexpected path. For Naperville native Claire Jia, that moment came during her senior year of college. “My life was on a completely different track—I wanted to be the U.S. ambassador to China and was pursuing a degree in political science,” she says. “I was working on my senior thesis when I realized I just could not write another research paper. So, I decided to write it as a novel.”

After college, Jia moved to Los Angeles and began writing screenplays. Her senior thesis ultimately became her debut novel, Wanting.

Published in July, Wanting tells the story of Ye Lian and Luo Wenyu, childhood friends who reunite in Beijing after years apart. As secrets surface and lives unravel, both women face the consequences of their pasts and the weight of their choices.

Though the story is primarily set in Beijing, the Naperville Central grad incorporates several events that take place in Illinois. “The book is kind of a very meta document of my own questions about making the right choices in life,” Jia explains. “It’s a story about deciding how much you’re allowed to want in this lifetime, and how much you’re willing to settle for.”

Photos: Claire Jia