The Opposite of Everyone

The Opposite of Everyone by Joshilyn Jackson is a very highly recommended novel about a tough lawyer and what made her so tough - her past.

Paula Vauss was named Kali Jai after the Hindu god of change and destruction when she was born to her teenage mother, Kai (Karen), who was serving time in a juvenile detention center in Alabama. Her grandmother, who was going to care for Paula, was sure she heard "Paula Jane" so that is what was written on Paula's birth certificate. Paula grew up with her young free-spirited mother, who delighted in telling young Paula tales from Hindu mythology as the two aimlessly moved from town to town as Kai went from boyfriend to boyfriend. Kai taught Paula how to tell a story, and Paula uses that skill show more today.

Now a tough divorce lawyer, Paula has been estranged from her mother for 15 years. The incident that changed their relationship and put a wedge between the closeness they once shared happened years ago, and Paula has been trying to make amends for her actions by sending her mother monthly checks for years. Now her mother has returned her check with a cryptic note written on it, saying that she is dying. Then, Paula, who has kept an emotional distance from others and refuses to form any attachments beyond the one to her cat, has a surprise literally come to her that will change her world.

As the present day drama unfolds, Paula recounts her mother's stories and recalls memories from her past. All the barriers she's built around herself for protection may have to be torn down if what she suspects is true. And then there is her former lover, current private investigator, Birdwine. Does she really want a relationship with him again, beyond a professional connection, or is one even possible.

I was totally engrossed in the story and the mysteries that drive the plot forward. Paula is a hard, tough-as-nails woman who has made herself that way because she believes it's what she needed to do to survive. She has major, glaring flaws and shortcomings in her personality and modus operandi, but I liked her. I wanted Paula to succeed in her personal life as well as in her profession. Ultimately this is a story of an unconventional family and forgiveness, and the power of mythology to transform the ordinary into something magical and compelling.

As always, Jackson's writing is incredible - smart, funny, poignant. She describes scenes and characters with a seductive ease and charm that allows the plot to flow beautifully, propelling the story forward even if the scene or the truth about a character is hard or ugly. That is part of the sublime appeal of all of Jackson's novels. Her characters are real people, with flaws and big problems, but you care about these wounded souls. You will want what's best for them and for them to reach some measure of peace in the end.

The Opposite of Everyone is good. Very, very good. It will grab you right at the start and you will be racing to the end to see what happens next. (I blame Jackson for some lost sleep last week.) Sure this is a stuck-overnight-at-the-airport book, but it's also a pull-it-out-and-read-at-every-opportunity book and a take-a-little-longer-lunchbreak book. I love everything Jackson has written and The Opposite of Everyone is no exception.

Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from HarperCollins for review purposes. show less

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 show more 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! show less

I’ve heard this author speak before, and the minute she opens her mouth, the whole room seems to light up and the audience finds itself charmed and entranced. Her books are the same way. You open the pages, and immediately fall in love with characters who are endearing, funny, sad, angry, hurt, yearning, and hopeful, but above all, absolutely real.

The narrator is Paula Vauss, originally named Kali Jai by her hippy mother Kai. Kai was in jail for drug use when Paula was born, so Kali was renamed Paula by her grandmother, and by the time Kai got out of jail, the name had stuck. Paula and her mother lived a peripatetic life, leaving her mom's boyfriends and bad situations behind. Paula didn’t always want to leave, but with Kai, show more “boyfriend love is the light on a bug’s back end, flicking on and off across a lawn.” When the light went out, they had to leave. Paula rebelled, first by being as bad as she could be, and then proving she could be better than anyone expected. Now, at age 35, she is a lawyer with a top divorce firm in Atlanta.

Paula hasn’t seen her mother for fifteen years, but she sends her a check every month, feeling that she ruined her mother’s life and she owes her, although in the beginning we don’t know exactly why she thinks this. The checks have been cashed regularly, but suddenly, after all this time, Paula gets back a voided check, with a note from Kai that she won’t be needing money anymore; she has cancer and will be dead soon.

There are other changes in Paula’s life. She had been having an affair with her most talented private investigator, Zach Birdwine, but Zach broke it off. Paula admits she probably created that problem. She allows “I was the road . . . that was crawling with barbed wire and bears and dynamite, marked with huge signs that said THERE IS NOTHING FOR YOU HERE.” Paula still wants to use Birdwine's PI services though; she has worked with him for almost nine years, and knows there is no one better. Birdwine has his own demons though, and every once in a while goes on an alcoholic bender.

In addition, a young man, Julian Bouchard, 23, who looks alarmingly like Paula, comes to see Paula and claims to be her half-brother. He wants help finding Kai, whom he never knew, having been adopted as an infant.

Paula asks Birdwine to help, and soon they find that there is someone else they need to take into account: yet another half-sibling - Hana May, aged ten. They all figure Kai might well be dead by now, but Paula wants to keep up the search to find Hana. Birdwine asks, if they can find her, what then? if you find her, what then after that? Paula thinks about it:

“I found that I could not imagine an after. How could I? Hana was suspended in the now, like Schrödinger's cat. She was both alive and dead, safe and scared, hungry and well fed, sleeping easy and crying in the dark. … the need to find Hana had hit me like biology. It was that basic, and that unreasonable.”

But it’s more than that too. Paula has spent her whole life desperate for forgiveness:

"I’d wanted it so bad. I’d wanted Kai - or anyone, anyone who knew the worst in me - to say that I was still dear, and good, and worthy.”

Birdwine is looking for forgiveness as well for the same reasons. Getting that redemption from Paula would mean a lot to him because she isn’t like everyone else:

“. . . everyone on this shithole planet says a lot of pretty words to make themselves look good while they do awful things.” he said. “You’re the opposite.”

Maybe finding Hana will be redemption for them both. So Paula and Birdwine, with Julian’s help, work together to find Hana and to find the end of the stories that have driven them all.

Evaluation: I loved this book. Joshilyn Jackson has never yet disappointed me. She is an author who is so charming that her personality leaks into her books, no matter how varied they are. And that’s a good thing. show less

Today, I was trying to read a book that I won and have to review. It was a struggle and finally I put it down and picked up this book and bam...read it straight through. That is how a book is suppose to behave, not feel like an undone chore. I loved this book and while I don't think I've read Joshilyn Jackson before, I do think I own several of her earlier books and I will be hunting them down pretty quick. Paula Vauss was born Kali Jai named by her hippie mother, Kai after a blue Hindu God. Since Kai has to go back into juvenile detention after the birth, her parents got temporary custody and put the name Paula Jane on the birth certificate. Paula's childhood is filled with her mother and her boyfriends and wanderings. Until the day show more that Paula decides to tell her own story and causes the separation between herself and her mother. This will color both of their future lives. Paula becomes the best and toughest divorce attorney in Atlanta and hasn't seen her mother in fifteen years. She has sent her a check for every month of those fifteen years until the last one comes back, uncashed with a note saying that she has cancer and will be going on a journey back to her beginning. The characters in this book are some of the most interesting that I've read about in quite awhile. It's not often you can read a story set in the South with large helpings of Hindu stories and enjoy every word of it. Highly recommended! show less

Meet Paula Vauss (or meet her again, if you've read [b:Someone Else's Love Story|17349119|Someone Else's Love Story|Joshilyn Jackson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1415586564s/17349119.jpg|24034796]). She's a tough divorce lawyer who voluntarily takes pro bono cases involving abused street girls. She was born blue-skinned with the umbilical cord around her neck, which prompted her mother to name her Kali after the Hindu goddess (how "Paula" ended up on her birth certificate is a whole other story). She is deliberately promiscuous, always ending a relationship the moment before she starts to care. She is sharp-edged at best, and at her best angry. She hasn't spoken to her mother Kai in a decade and despairs of ever being forgiven. Now show more here to rock her world is news that the woman is dying and that Paula might have more family than only Kai, if she can only track her mother down. For this, she employs Zach Birdwine, a PI who knows his job when he's sober and falls off the wagon at least yearly. He's also one of her exes; they were together just long enough for Paula to start possibly caring.

In many ways, this novel is classic Joshilyn Jackson: a story of dysfunctional people whose lives intersect all over the place. Some secondary characters are more outlandish than others, yet their human foundation keeps me believing in their reality. As always, Jackson's dialogue sings and crackles and all-around delights with its genuineness, and her narrative voice gives me craft envy.

But in other ways, this book makes me wonder if Jackson somehow read my 2-star review of her last book and actually decided not to repeat the things that angered some of her readers (minority though we were).

First of all, this book does not feature a pull-the-rug-out POV cheat masquerading as a clever twist. In fact, it doesn't really feature any twist. Not that it's predictable, but the characters come first, and these characters are who they are. When things happen as they happen, the reader gets to say, aha, yes rather than what the--?! It's a great improvement.

Second, Jackson somehow manages to be more tasteful with the sexual content in this book (about a woman who is ticked off at herself for wanting monogamy with someone) than she was in the last book (about a woman who claims to have had a child via immaculate conception). Part of me wonders if this isn't a deliberate joke of the author's (and if so, I begrudgingly tip my hat to her wit; but I still won't read Shandi's book again). I wanted to like Paula's book, didn't really expect to, and then ... did. Despite the fact that Paula's solution to her life spinning out of control is If I go sleep with an ex, I'll be myself again and things will be fine.

I think the reason for this is a simple one: Paula changes. That in a nutshell is why I enjoyed this book so much. Both Paula and Birdwine have serious dysfunction in their lives, yet both of them learn and grow in this story. By the end, I can root for their future as a couple, because Jackson has sown the hope that they will keep on getting healthier and they will end up okay. The same goes for other relationships in the book, especially Paula's with her unexpected family. They all have a long way to go, but Jackson makes us care about their journey and makes us believe they will get there. This one goes on my keeper shelf. show less

This book was the opposite of what I expected. The reviews made it sound crazy and hard to follow--it was not. Paula Vauss, born Kali, is a litigator with a backstory that you sometimes find with good litigators. She had a troubled past and she uses that anger in the court room and to squash opponents. She has a thing for a private investigator with his own secrets. One premise of the story is it is impossible to have a meaningful relationship while holding on to secrets. Paula holds on to hers for dear life--that is, until she is forced to drop her guard by the presence of live people who make holding onto the lie impossible. One of the themes I love in the story is about family: What makes up a family? Jackson beautifully addresses show more this theme. Related people who do not know each other can form a very tight familial bond. Related people who do not know each other may have no bond at all. And unrelated people can form a very tight bond. This theme is such a wonderful contrast with Vauss' character. She is in the business of breaking families up. She is the type of divorce attorney that the good ole boys' law firm (where she is a named partner) call in when one of them needs a street fighter to get the job done. She does her job so well because she has no feelings. They were snubbed out by her nomadic childhood and foster care and her overarching sense of guilt surrounding her wayward mother's imprisonment. It is only after her secrets are revealed that she is able to demonstrate any feelings, and they all come tumbling out at first disguised as a neurosis, and then for what they are. Jackson's writing kept me engaged from page one until the very end. It is one of my favorite books I have read over the last six months. show less

(NOTE: I received a digital review copy from the publisher via Edelweiss.)

Paula Vauss was born in a juvenile detention center to her teenaged mother, Karen "Kai" Vauss. To say that Paula and Kai had a strange relationship is a major understatement. As an adult, Paula's relationship with her mother consists of sending a monthly check to her mother's postal box. Paula's life is thrown upside down when her last check is returned with a somewhat twisted karmic message in The Opposite of Everyone by Joshilyn Jackson.

Paula Jane Vauss was named Kali Jai by her mother, but her maternal grandparents changed her name when completing her birth certificate. Paula knows her mother is a tad bit strange, but she has no idea about her paternity other show more than providing her skin color and somewhat distinctive eye-shape. Growing up with Kai was different, in that Paula never knew what their last names would be or what story her mother would create for their backstory. Paula doesn't hate her mother, but she's quite sure her mother is glad she's no longer an active part of her life. In an effort to pay off the guilt she feels for one childish act of anger, Paula has spent most of her adult life sending her mother money. After receiving a note with her last check stating that her mother is dying and no longer requires her money, Paula is somewhat relieved. That relief quickly turns to worry and, in turn, causes months of anxiety and panic attacks. The panic attacks lessen somewhat when she is confronted with a half-sibling she never knew about, a brother born while her mother was in prison and given up for adoption. Just as she's getting used to the idea of one half-sibling, she uncovers information that she may have another half-sibling. Where is this youngest sibling and where and when did Kai actually die? Can the lone wolf, diva lawyer become a loving and caring older sister? Does she even want to?

If you follow most of my reviews, you know that I generally read a book in one day and sometimes in one sitting. Well, I flew through The Opposite of Everyone in one sitting over a span of just a few hours (yes, it was just that good). Ms. Jackson has a unique way of storytelling that grabbed this reader after only a few pages into the book and I reluctantly put it down only after reading the last page. I enjoyed the way Paula's story was told, with what can only be described as flashbacks to provide the backstory. Paula is a kick-ass diva lawyer and even that is spotlighted with a few cases throughout the story. She has a sort of, kind of, almost, maybe, not-quite love affair going on with her private investigator, Zachary Birdwine. All of the characters are distinctive, eccentric, and wholly believable, as well as relatable. Mixed into this tale of one woman's family and a search for love and forgiveness are the Hindu myths of Kali, Ganesh, and Hanuman. You wouldn't think a Southern fiction story mixed with Hindu myths would work, but Ms. Jackson doesn't just make it work, she has it make perfect sense. If you enjoy stories with quirky, flawed characters or are simply looking to read a great story, then you'll definitely want to grab a copy of The Opposite of Everyone. Did I enjoy The Opposite of Everyone? Yes, I did and I'll have to wait a few weeks before I read it again (told you, it is that good). show less