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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
How I love Joshilyn Jackson, especially in audiobook form. This novel is the story of Paula, a lawyer that we originally met in Someone Else's Love Story (though it took me a while to figure that out). Like all of Jackson's stories, this book features strong, straight talking, kickass heroines. It's the story of the family that we are born into and the one we make. Family bonds bend but don't break.
Like fine wine, Joshilyn Jackson just gets better with time. I've enjoyed every book of hers that I've read, but I think this one really tops the list.
There's so much to enjoy, from the take-no-prisoners protagonist Paula, who is the antithesis of a sweet Southern lady, to the re-writing of what family really is. It's a look into a different world of insecure childhoods and unintended consequences that reflect a reality with which I was unfamiliar. It takes vague notions of the state of broken families and the legal system and makes them very real through Paula's present as well as her past. TOOE examines the bonds of love between a mother and child, strained to the breaking point, and the power of redemption and forgiveness--forgiving our parents for being who they are and forgiving ourselves for our rebellions and the damage they inflict.
I absolutely loved it and look forward to Jackson's next offering.
There's so much to enjoy, from the take-no-prisoners protagonist Paula, who is the antithesis of a sweet Southern lady, to the re-writing of what family really is. It's a look into a different world of insecure childhoods and unintended consequences that reflect a reality with which I was unfamiliar. It takes vague notions of the state of broken families and the legal system and makes them very real through Paula's present as well as her past. TOOE examines the bonds of love between a mother and child, strained to the breaking point, and the power of redemption and forgiveness--forgiving our parents for being who they are and forgiving ourselves for our rebellions and the damage they inflict.
I absolutely loved it and look forward to Jackson's next offering.
A quick read full of drama and emotional dysfunctional characters. 3.5
3.5 stars. The Opposite of Everyone was gritty and unique, with the Joshilyn Jackson way of being warm and fuzzy at the same time. I loved the flashbacks to Kai's time at a group home for girls and the way many things came full circle in the end. Kai's mom was terrible though and I still don't feel like Kai ever truly realized that her mom was not the hippie saint she made her out to be in her mind.
I read some of the discussion info at the end of the book and was surprised to find that some of the elements of the story were based on real life scenarios. In the book, the character of Kai is a divorce lawyer for the rich and there were some crazy cases she dealt with that came from true stories. Jackson also worked with social workers to get an accurate portrayal of the foster system that Kai had to go through as a child and later on in the story. That made me appreciate the novel even more.
I read some of the discussion info at the end of the book and was surprised to find that some of the elements of the story were based on real life scenarios. In the book, the character of Kai is a divorce lawyer for the rich and there were some crazy cases she dealt with that came from true stories. Jackson also worked with social workers to get an accurate portrayal of the foster system that Kai had to go through as a child and later on in the story. That made me appreciate the novel even more.
This book: origin stories that involve Hindu Gods in the American south, the foster care system, private investigators with complicated pasts, likable - though very flawed - characters trying to do the right thing, even when it’s unclear what the right thing is.
Quotes:
Grief did not a bra on the coffee table explain. 63
139 A long time ago, this happened, and it’s happening now.
144 In that time before memory, everything I touched was hers. I heard her voice from the inside, with no idea that she was a separate person. Back then, she had simply been the world.
163 The job would let me funnel cash to him. If the water got too cold, too deep, too full of sharks - hell, just too wet - he’d have the means to flee back to the sheltered world of Berry College.
187 Also, I didn’t want to look at a happy family, posting happy stories that might even be true. I was here with some jagged ends from families that hadn’t worked. There were more of us. The world was full of us, the leftovers and the levers, the bereaved and the broken.
192 We are gypsies among other gypsies, shifting in and out of love, towns, names, constantly in flux, reinvented by and for each other.
231 As if it had happened a long time ago, and was still happening now.
Quotes:
Grief did not a bra on the coffee table explain. 63
139 A long time ago, this happened, and it’s happening now.
144 In that time before memory, everything I touched was hers. I heard her voice from the inside, with no idea that she was a separate person. Back then, she had simply been the world.
163 The job would let me funnel cash to him. If the water got too cold, too deep, too full of sharks - hell, just too wet - he’d have the means to flee back to the sheltered world of Berry College.
187 Also, I didn’t want to look at a happy family, posting happy stories that might even be true. I was here with some jagged ends from families that hadn’t worked. There were more of us. The world was full of us, the leftovers and the levers, the bereaved and the broken.
192 We are gypsies among other gypsies, shifting in and out of love, towns, names, constantly in flux, reinvented by and for each other.
231 As if it had happened a long time ago, and was still happening now.
This was excellent entertainment in audio form. Loved the imagery from Indian religion.
Joshilyn Jackson has been on my radar for a few years now via two of her previous six novels, gods in Alabama and The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, and those two were enough to make me want to read her latest, The Opposite of Everyone. This one features one of the least likable heroines (at least as the story begins) that I’ve encountered for a while…a divorce lawyer who is every bit as cutthroat as her real world counterparts.
To her credit, Paula learned to play that kind of legal hardball the hard way. She never knew who her father was, and her mother was a shape-shifter who changed her own name and occupation to more closely fit into the environments of a stream of live-in lovers. Bad as that may have been, things got even worse for Paula and her mother when the cops busted one of Kai’s men. While her mother served time for a related offense, Paula’s lessons into the ways of the world continued in the state-run school for parentless girls that became her new home.
So, all things considered, Paula has turned out pretty well. She’s now a prominent Atlanta divorce attorney, partner in a three-attorney firm that appears to be doing quite well from the pain of others (is that too cynical on my part?). But, like Kai, Paula is unable to sustain long-term relationships of her own – even with Kai, it seems. And now, in a rather cryptic note (even that much communication between the mother and daughter is rare) Kai announces that she has a very few weeks left to live. Oh, and by the way, she does not want Paula to come to her in San Antonio, thanks very much. As it turns out, Paula has no intention of visiting her dying mother anyway, so her mother’s instructions are not exactly a crushing disappointment to her.
Kai, though, has a couple of big surprises for Paula, and when the first one shows up in her office, Paula’s world – and her way of looking at that world – begin to change for the better. Via alternating flashbacks from the present to Paula’s childhood experiences, The Opposite of Everyone tells an intriguing story of a grown woman who in every sense is still struggling to figure out who she is. And she is in for a big surprise.
Joshilyn Jackson is a good storyteller, an author who places believable characters into unusual situations that will test what is at their core. My only quarrel with The Opposite of Everyone is that near the end of the novel, the flashbacks really began to slow the plot’s momentum – even to the point that I was tempted to skip the flashback and read the next real-time chapter instead. In two or three instances, I found that to be particularly frustrating. My anxiety to find out what happens next probably speaks well for plot’s effectiveness, but not for how the flashback device itself was executed.
Bottom Line: The Opposite of Everyone has a good story to tell, and if you are a little more patient than me, you’re really going to like this one.
To her credit, Paula learned to play that kind of legal hardball the hard way. She never knew who her father was, and her mother was a shape-shifter who changed her own name and occupation to more closely fit into the environments of a stream of live-in lovers. Bad as that may have been, things got even worse for Paula and her mother when the cops busted one of Kai’s men. While her mother served time for a related offense, Paula’s lessons into the ways of the world continued in the state-run school for parentless girls that became her new home.
So, all things considered, Paula has turned out pretty well. She’s now a prominent Atlanta divorce attorney, partner in a three-attorney firm that appears to be doing quite well from the pain of others (is that too cynical on my part?). But, like Kai, Paula is unable to sustain long-term relationships of her own – even with Kai, it seems. And now, in a rather cryptic note (even that much communication between the mother and daughter is rare) Kai announces that she has a very few weeks left to live. Oh, and by the way, she does not want Paula to come to her in San Antonio, thanks very much. As it turns out, Paula has no intention of visiting her dying mother anyway, so her mother’s instructions are not exactly a crushing disappointment to her.
Kai, though, has a couple of big surprises for Paula, and when the first one shows up in her office, Paula’s world – and her way of looking at that world – begin to change for the better. Via alternating flashbacks from the present to Paula’s childhood experiences, The Opposite of Everyone tells an intriguing story of a grown woman who in every sense is still struggling to figure out who she is. And she is in for a big surprise.
Joshilyn Jackson is a good storyteller, an author who places believable characters into unusual situations that will test what is at their core. My only quarrel with The Opposite of Everyone is that near the end of the novel, the flashbacks really began to slow the plot’s momentum – even to the point that I was tempted to skip the flashback and read the next real-time chapter instead. In two or three instances, I found that to be particularly frustrating. My anxiety to find out what happens next probably speaks well for plot’s effectiveness, but not for how the flashback device itself was executed.
Bottom Line: The Opposite of Everyone has a good story to tell, and if you are a little more patient than me, you’re really going to like this one.
Enjoyed it, but I didn't think it was as good as other books by this author.
Joshilyn Jackson books deserved to be read twice in a row - the first time quickly because you have to find out where her characters' journeys will end, and the second time more leisurely so you can savor her beautiful writing. The Opposite of Everyone is vintage JJ, and very reassuring to me after the disappointing Someone Else's Love Story. For anyone who is unfamiliar with this author, you're in for a treat - a damaged but tough and competent heroine, an ex-lover with his own ghosts, a harrowing look at the foster care system, family and friends lost and found, the reason why divorce attorneys live for BANK cases (both assholes, no kids), and attempted murder by kitten. Does that sound sad, funny and true all at the same time? It is.
For long-time Jackson fans, you'll be glad to find that Paula Vauss is a much more mature and engaging heroine than Shandi from Love Story (maybe I just have a thing for heroines who won't take any BS), and the plot doesn't hit any third rails like Love Story's late twist that some readers saw as unforgivable "rape apology" This may be the author's best work to date.
ETA: Just read an interview with Jackson in which she says, "I’m a re-reader and I write for re-readers. As a re-reader, I want to zoom along the first time and love every minute, but I want enough in there to catch on my brain to make me want to delve in again." Exactly what I meant when I started this review!
For long-time Jackson fans, you'll be glad to find that Paula Vauss is a much more mature and engaging heroine than Shandi from Love Story (maybe I just have a thing for heroines who won't take any BS), and the plot doesn't hit any third rails
ETA: Just read an interview with Jackson in which she says, "I’m a re-reader and I write for re-readers. As a re-reader, I want to zoom along the first time and love every minute, but I want enough in there to catch on my brain to make me want to delve in again." Exactly what I meant when I started this review!
This book is about opposites...opposite heroine that we know, opposite life, opposite family. Such a good read about someone so opposite of me, but the same.