Release Date: November 19/2013
Adquired: Print copy provided by publisher
Goodreads: ADD
Purchase: Amazon/Indigo/Book Depository
At twenty-one, Shandi Pierce is juggling finishing college, raising her delightful three-year-old genius son Natty, and keeping the peace between her eternally warring, long-divorced Catholic mother and Jewish father. She’s got enough complications without getting caught in the middle of a stick-up in a gas station mini-mart and falling in love with a great wall of a man named William Ashe, who willingly steps between the armed robber and her son.
Shandi doesn’t know that her blond god Thor has his own complications. When he looked down the barrel of that gun he believed it was destiny: It’s been one year to the day since a tragic act of physics shattered his universe. But William doesn’t define destiny the way other people do. A brilliant geneticist who believes in science and numbers, destiny to him is about choice.
Now, he and Shandi are about to meet their so-called destinies head on, in a funny, charming, and poignant novel about science and miracles, secrets and truths, faith and forgiveness,; about a virgin birth, a sacrifice, and a resurrection; about falling in love, and learning that things aren’t always what they seem—or what we hope they will be. It’s a novel about discovering what we want and ultimately finding what we need.
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I needed to LITERALLY stop sighing of happiness in order to come on here and start this review. Can I start this review? I will make a blubbering mess of it, guaranteed. Someone Else's Love Story is, hands down, in the top 3 BEST BOOKS I've read this year. Possibly ever. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I want to tell you why it was amazing, let me tell you why:THE WRITING. The effortless, beautiful, all-consuming wonder of the words that traveled from Joshilyn's brain, to her fingertips, to every.single.page:
"No one had yet proved the existence of human pheromones, but William became certain of them. There was no other explanation for his reaction to her solitary joy as she destroyed the park to raise it, to the way the basic shape and smell and sound of her undid him; she was indefinably correct for him. He knew it on the cellular level."
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Do those words sear your heart in the most intensely wonderful way, as they did mine? Imagine that feeling throughout 352 pages.
I wish everyone got it, I wish every single author knew what this author so obviously knew: your characters need to know each other. Even before they arrived in your head, they need to have existed in each others lives for years, and years. They need to star in your book like you've asked them to just show up, and be completely themselves. That's exactly what it felt like while reading Someone Else's Love Story. From the very first scene, which gathered Shandi, her son Natty, her best friend Walcott, and her mother. No introductions were made, everyone just continued as they were..and it was PERFECTION. The dialogue was SO REAL, and SO natural that I felt like I could have gotten up from my bed, and walked right into their house. The dialogue between Shandi and Walcott, William and Paula..my GOD, you can't teach someone to write dialogue like that. You either have it, or you don't. And Joshilyn Jackson HAS IT, my GOD does she have it.
I wish I could get over the writing enough to tell you that the story line within Someone Else's Love Story was equally as spectacular. Because it was, and there wasn't a single thing I would have wanted to read differently. Have you ever been reading a story, and it gets to a part, and you think to yourself: "Oh man, I really hope THIS happens, that would be perfect." But then it doesn't, and you're not really given something else, but instead, a whole HEAP of ambiguity? Yeah? Me too, and it FRUSTRATES me to NO end. If that's something you hate, well Someone Else's Love Story is something you will LOVE. Everything that I hoped would happen in this book, HAPPENED. I have NEVER been more satisfied with a narrative, the way this book satisfied me. I wish I could type this entire paragraph in capslock. MORE FEELINGS! I can't be coherent right now. I thought giving it a few days would help me settle my thoughts, but I can't. Every time I think of this book, I want to smile the smile to beat all smiles.
The content in Someone Else's Love Story may lean a little too far into the controversial side of things for some readers, but for ye of open minds, you will find gold in here. I thought the author approached the topic of rape in a smart way, in a fair way. I may take heat for this, but I feel like the issue of assault is one that many people can only view as black and white. Gray areas are shunned, and sometimes, the truth is pushed so far back that no one bothers to look for it anymore. Joshilyn Jackson didn't let that happen in this book, she explored, and she let us explore with her-which I completely respected her for. I thought the conclusion of this book was done incredibly well, and wholly satisfied the romantic in me.
If you're in the mood for something real, something that has the potential to be completely relatable, please go pick up Someone Else's Love Story. Then come back to my review and tell me how right I was..go on..do it.
Recommended for Fans of: Rainbow Rowell's dialogue, Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Controversial Issues, Romance.
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Jackson's latest novel, SOMEONE ELSE'S LOVE STORY, pubs on November 19, 2013!
New York Times Bestselling novelist Joshilyn Jackson is the author of gods in Alabama, Between, Georgia, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, Backseat Saints, A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, and most recently, SOMEONE ELSE'S LOVE STORY. Her books have been translated into a dozen languages, won SIBA’s novel of the year, twice been a #1 Book Sense Pick, and twice been shortlisted for the Townsend prize. A former actor, Jackson reads the audio versions of her novels; her work in this field has been nominated for the Audie Award, was selected by AudioFile Magazine for their best of the year list, and garnered two Listen Up Awards from Publisher’s Weekly.
She is hard at work on a new novel expected in 2015.
Contact Links
Thank-you to Kim from She Reads for hosting this tour, and to Pamela Dorman Books for sending me a print copy to review!
I want to read this book so bad! It's not being sold here in Brazil yet, so I guess I'll have to wait for a while, but it'll be harder now after reading this amazing review..
ReplyDeleteAwwww ... i know exactly what you mean. This is one romance that I just breathed in and sighhhhhed after. You on the ball about how the rape was treated, it was really well done. Bravo for your review :) (and bravo to a wonderful book and author!)
ReplyDeleteOhhh I INHALED this book, my goodness! The characters are fabulous, the writing style is fabulous, and the plot, don't even get me started! I totally agree with you that the characters just inherently know each other—from Walcott and Shandi's entertaining/heartbreaking friendship, to Shandi's hilarious quips about her mother, to Will and Bridget's subtle familiarities—and Joshilyn Jackson portrays that beautifully. I just love how you put that. I'm so glad I came across your review and found someone who feels the same way about this one! <3
ReplyDeleteRight!? Warmed my heart right down to the core, this one. I will never, never forget how this book made me feel. I want to read her other work, have you read anything else by her?
DeleteThank you so much for checking out my review! I totally fan-girled while writing it =P