Someone Else's Love Story

A Novel

By: Joshilyn Jackson

Narrated by: Joshilyn Jackson

Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Someone Else's Love Story is beloved and highly acclaimed New York Times best-selling author Joshilyn Jackson's funny, charming, and poignant novel about science and miracles, secrets and truths, faith and forgiveness; about falling in love, and learning that things aren't always what they seem - or what we hope they will be.

Shandi Pierce is juggling finishing college, raising her delightful three-year-old genius son Nathan, aka Natty Bumppo, and keeping the peace between her eternally warring, long-divorced parents. She's got enough complications without getting caught in the middle of a stick-up and falling in love with William Ashe, who willingly steps between the 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 world. But William doesn't define destiny the way others do. A brilliant geneticist who believes in facts and numbers, destiny to him is about choice. Now, he 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.

©2013 Joshilyn Jackson (P)2013 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"Author Joshilyn Jackson's voice delivers the protagonists' heartbreaking pasts with delicate sensitivity... Her voice for Natty is delightful while Shandi's drawl is equally pleasant to hear. She captures William's Asperger's in an authentic way with a slightly stiff yet warm voice. Enlivening flashbacks as well as Jackson's careful pacing and voicings will keep listeners engaged." (AudioFile Magazine)

"An inspiring story of love, faith and redemption... All of the characters...are so vividly drawn, they fairly leap off the page." (Booklist)

"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." (People)

Personal love stories - real or imagined

Jackson went a bit out on a limb with this book, creating characters who, compared to her previous books, are a little harder to like, less quirky than puzzling in their motivations. The primary “love story” of the title is the one Shandy is trying to create with William, the hero of the hold-up in the convenience store. But he has his own story, and the question is whether it can get on track with Shandy’s fantasy. If that was the only plot point, the story would have been flat and predictable. But Jackson looks at relationships in general – friendships, parents and children, husbands and wives, even perceptions and assumptions about strangers – exploring how we fill in the blanks with our desires and imaginations when we just don’t have all the information about what’s going on. That exploration was both interesting and frustrating because of the self delusions that drove the decsions made by various characters. Once all was said and done, I did like how it resolved and can say that I enjoyed the story.

One aspect of the story I just didn’t like was the graphic nature of some of the relationships. It’s not unusual for Jackson to include adult situations in her stories, and I really don’t mind that within context and reason. But in this outing she made those situations unnecessarily long and explicit. It stalled the forward movement of the story without adding any value to plot or character development. It reduced my enjoyment of the overall experience enough to drop one star.

Great listen.

I have listened to almost all of Joshilyn Jackson's books and absolutely love them. Growing up in Alabama I was drawn to her titles and was immediately hooked with the first paragraph. The stories are rich with sentiment, humor and reality. I love listening to the author read her own work. I will listen to anything she ever writes.

My New Favorite Author

Would you listen to Someone Else's Love Story again? Why?

Kept my interest and made me fall in love with her characters.

What does Joshilyn Jackson bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Having the author give voice to her characters let me hear them as she intended them to sound.

Another great book!

This is another great book by J Jackson. Not as good as Gods in Alabama, but still an awesome book. Great narration by the author. I love her books some more than others.

Favorite

Love this book. And I love to hear Joshilyn Jackson read her work. Great story!

One of my favorite Authors

Joshilyn Jackson is one of my favorite authors and I’ve read several of her books. I loved this story. Lots of ins and outs. Definitely one you have to pay attention to because every detail matters. I loved the character cross over from previous books I’ve read/listened to. Definitely would recommend for a person who likes a little mystery, but still wants to keep a light hearted tone.

Engaging and sweet

Entertaining story with a few unique twists and characters, I feel like the author kind of ended it a little prematurely though.

A Can of Worms that shouldn't Have been Opened

Sometimes I enjoy Jocelyn Jackson's writing and sometimes I just don't get it. Three fourth's of the way through this book the only one I liked or cared about was the kid. The book starts out with an interesting situation involving the protagonist Shandi and her child, then follows her with additional unusual situations for chic lit.... autism, date rape, genetics.

What started out as interesting just never got there for me. All the irrational acts and irresponsibility of the characters became too many to keep my attention.

I had issues with how the author painted the protagonist. Shandi finds one male character, a brainiac with asperger's, physically attractive. They have little in common but at first glance she is "madly in love" with him. Upon further time spent together she still has nothing in common with him and finds him oddly self absorbed (Imagine). She keeps plowing ahead, to win his affections by changing her clothes and keeping his house. I found it insulting to paint her as an educated single mother then have her act so shallow.

I applaud the author for choosing some out of the box story lines but, geez, follow through with them. It's as if the author picked and chose the parts of her plot that fit into her story and ignored what wasn't easy. Along the same lines - she moves her child to a new home so that he could go to a school that will enhance his gift. Then schooling is never mentioned again. She continues to move him around with no concern for her child's education. It's hard to care about a characters when the author had so little respect for them. I would love to go on about the disturbing retaliation for a "rape", but I can't do it without giving up too much of the story.

Not the best Jocelyn Jackson book, for me...

I love Joshilyn Jackson!

Would you consider the audio edition of Someone Else's Love Story to be better than the print version?

Jackson is the perfect narrator for her own books. I always wait until they are available on audio, as torturous as that is, because she does such a great job.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

This is a book I'm recommending to everyone!

Saccharine

This book is like a desert with double the correct amount of sugar. It might taste sort of good while you're eating it, but after you realize you should've eaten something else. One dimensional, improbable and cliché.