Someone Else's Love Story (Jackson)

Someone Else's Love Story
Joshilyn Jackson, 2013
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062105653


Summary
For single mom Shandi Pierce, life is a juggling act. She's finishing college, raising her delightful son Nathan, and keeping the peace between her eternally warring, long-divorced parents. She's got enough to deal with before she gets caught in the middle of a stickup in a gas station and falls in love with a man named William Ashe when he steps between the armed robber and her son to shield him from danger.

Shandi doesn't know that William has his own baggage. When he looked down the barrel of the gun in the gas station he believed it was destiny: it's been exactly one year since a tragic act of physics shattered his universe. But William doesn't define destiny the way other people do—to him destiny is about choice.

Now, William and Shandi are about to meet their so-called destinies head-on, making choices that will reveal unexpected truths about love, life, and the world they think they know. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 27, 1968
• Where—Fort Walton Beach, Florida, USA
• Education—B.A., Georgia State University; M.A., University of Illinois
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Decatur, Georgia


Joshilyn Jackson is the author of several novels, all national best sellers. She was born into a military family, moving often in and out of seven states before the age of nine. She graduated from high school in Pensacola, Florida, and after attending a number of different colleges, earned her B.A. from Georgia State University. She went on to earn an M.A. in creative writing from University of Illinois in Chicago.

Having enjoyed stage acting as a student in Chicago, Jackson now does her own voice work for the audio versions of her books. Her dynamic readings have won plaudits from AudioFile Magazine, which selected her for its "Best of the Year" list. She also made the 2012 Audible "All-Star" list for the highest listener ranks/reviews; in addition, she won three "Listen-Up Awards" from Publisher's Weekly. Jackson has also read books by other authors, including Lydia Netzer's Shine Shine Shine.

Novels
All of Jackson's novels take place in the American South, the place she knows best. Her characters are generally women struggling to find their way through troubled lives and relationships. Kirkus Reviews has described her writing as...

Quirky, Southern-based, character-driven...that combines exquisite writing, vivid personalities, and imaginative storylines while subtly contemplating race, romance, family, and self.

2005 - Gods in Alabama
2006 - Between, Georgia
2008 - The Girl Who Stopped Swimming
2010 - Backseat Saints
2012 - A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty
2013 - Someone Elses's Love Story
2005 - Gods in Alabama
2006 - Between, Georgia
2008 - The Girl Who Stopped Swimming
2010 - Backseat Saints
2012 - A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty
2013 - Someone Else's Love Story
2016 - The Opposite of Everyone
2017 - The Almost Sisters
2019 - Never Have I Ever

Awards
Jackson's books have been translated into a dozen languages, won the Southern Indie Booksellers Alliance's SIBA Novel of the Year, have three times been a #1 Book Sense Pick, twice won Georgia Author of the Year, and three times been shortlisted for the Townsend Prize. (Author's bio adapted from the author's website.)

Book Reviews
[T]here is love at [this novel’s] heart… there is much to gain from a closer read.  (3 out of 4 stars)
USA Today

 
A surprising novel, both graceful and tender. You won’t be able to put it down.
Dallas Morning News


Someone Else’s Love Story is worth reading, even studying. Expressions of love come in many forms, as Jackson shows.
Omaha World-Herald


Joshilyn Jackson is a brilliant storyteller and has a unique gift of bringing quirkiness to her characters and a lot of twists and turns to her tale.
Wichita Falls Times Record Review


Someone Else’s Love Story is never predictable, full of humor and heart and characters you can’t help but love.
Greenville News


Witty, cleverly constructed and including a truly surprising twist, Someone Else’s Love Story turns out to be a nuanced exploration of faith, family and the things we do for love. (3 ½ stars)
People

Finely drawn characters make the miraculous plausible, from the opening hostage scene in a North Georgia convenience store to an ending that hits the mark of "surprising yet inevitable" mastered and articulated by Flannery O’Connor.
Atlanta Magazine


[W]itty and insightful.... [A]a novel at once funny and touching, whose characters’ many flaws are overshadowed by all the ways in which they look out for one another. The final denouement of Jackson’s roller-coaster love story will leave the reader both thoroughly sated and hungry for more. Publishers Weekly


[O]riginal and amusing.... [T]he plot takes an unexpected turn with the introduction of a new character late in the book. Unfortunately, the clunky transitions among narrators and jumps between the past and present distract at times from the story. Still, Jackson's many fans and those who love authentic Southern fiction should enjoy this title. —Amber McKee, Cumberland Univ. Lib., Lebanon, TN
Library Journal


There are scenes that will make you gasp, pause or even tear up as Jackson’s characters fumble toward imperfect enlightenment. Someone Else’s Love Story will delight and surprise with its unexpected compassion, empathy and humanity.
BookPage


Jackson's novel perfectly captures the flavor and rhythm of Southern life as a young woman preparing for college finds herself caught up in a real-life drama ... Wrapped in a thoughtful, often funny and insightful narrative...Jackson presents the reader with a story that is never predictable and is awash in bittersweet love, regret and the promise of what could be. A surprising novel, both graceful and tender. You won't be able to put it down.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What does the title tell you about the story this story? What do we learn from the first line? How does the book's opening set the stage for the events that follow?

2. "That afternoon in the Circle K, I deserved to know, right off, that I had landed bang in the middle of a love story. Especially since it wasn't—it isn't—it could never be, my own. " Why could this story never be Shandi's? If it's not hers, than whose love story is it?

3. Everyone sees William as a hero for his acts during the robbery. How does William answer this? Would you call it brave? Why did Shandi have such faith that William would save them?

4. Destiny and choice are major themes in the novel. What does destiny mean to William? What about Shandi?

5. Shandi and Walcott have known each other forever. Discuss their relationship. How is it transformed? Why do we often miss the obvious in our lives?

6. How do the religious references sprinkled through the story—Natty's virgin birth for example—add a deeper level of flavor and meaning to the book?

7. Why is William angry with Bridget and not her "imaginary God"? When bad things happen most people blame God. Why? Why doesn't William?

8. Think about the novel's structure. The story moves back in forth in time between Shandi and Williams's pasts and their present. How does this form of storytelling shape your reading experience and comprehension of events as they unfold? How would the story be different if it began with William instead of Shandi?

9. How does their meeting change both William and Shandi? Would you call their meeting fate or destiny or maybe a miracle? "It isn't every day he meets a girl who killed a miracle," William thinks when he agrees to help Shandi. Why does her having "killed" a miracle so intrigue him?

10. How do each of these characters' certainties and beliefs change when they are confronted by unexpected circumstances—the robbery, the fireworks, the DNA results, meeting Natty's father for example?

11. The possibility of goodness and forgiveness are also themes in the book. Talk about how they are demonstrated in various characters' lives and experiences.

12. How many different kind of love stories are in the book? How do they all intertwine?

13. We're you surprised at the ending? Was it exactly what should happen for all the characters?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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