"The Opposite of Everyone" by Joshilyn Jackson tells the story of Paula Kali Vauss, a tough divorce attorney with a troubled past. The narrative alternates between Paula's present life and her nomadic childhood with her mother, Kai. As Paula receives a cryptic message from her estranged mother after years of no contact, her life takes unexpected turns. The book delves into themes of forgiveness, family dynamics, and self-discovery, painting a picture of a complex and flawed protagonist navigating through her past and present.
The novel is known for its engaging storytelling, compelling characters, and seamless transitions between different timeframes. Readers are drawn into Paula's world, where past traumas and relationships shape her present choices and struggles. Joshilyn Jackson's writing style weaves together humor, heartbreak, and redemption, creating a story that explores the complexities of love, forgiveness, and the impact of family ties on one's identity.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Themes of childhood trauma, parental neglect, prison, and substance abuse serve as content warnings.
Has Romance?
The story features a medium level of romance through the protagonist's interactions and past relationships.
From The Publisher:
A fiercely independent divorce lawyer learns the power of family and connection when she receives a cryptic message from her estranged mother in this bittersweet, witty novel from the nationally bestselling author of Someone Else's Love Story and gods in Alabama-an emotionally resonant tale about the endurance of love and the power of stories to shape and transform our lives.
Born in Alabama, Paula Vauss spent the first decade of her life on the road with her free-spirited young mother, Kai, an itinerant storyteller who blended Hindu mythology with southern oral tradition to re-invent their history as they roved. But everything, including Paula's birth name Kali Jai, changed when she told a story of her own-one that landed Kai in prison and Paula in foster care. Separated, each holding secrets of her own, the intense bond they once shared was fractured.
These days, Paula has reincarnated herself as a tough-as-nails divorce attorney with a successful practice in Atlanta. While she hasn't seen Kai in fifteen years, she's still making payments on that Karmic debt-until the day her last check is returned in the mail, along with a mysterious note: "I am going on a journey, Kali. I am going back to my beginning; death is not the end. You will be the end. We will meet again, and there will be new stories. You know how Karma works."
Then Kai's most treasured secret literally lands on Paula's doorstep, throwing her life into chaos and transforming her from only child to older sister. Desperate to find her mother before it's too late, Paula sets off on a journey of discovery that will take her back to the past and into the deepest recesses of her heart. With the help of her ex-lover Birdwine, an intrepid and emotionally volatile private eye who still carries a torch for her, this brilliant woman, an expert at wrecking families, now has to figure out how to put one back together-her own.
The Opposite of Everyone is a story about story itself, how the tales we tell connect us, break us, and define us, and how the endings and beginnings we choose can destroy us . . . and make us whole. Laced with sharp humor and poignant insight, it is beloved New York Times bestselling author Joshilyn Jackson at her very best.
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1 comment(s)
This book has been sitting in my brain waiting for me to write something about it, but I'm somehow stuck.
The Opposite of Everyone isn't Jackson's typical Southern gothic; it is set in the south, and has her hallmarks of a life lived on the road and rich, faceted characters, but the tone of the novel is different. Paula might be my favorite of her heroines, even though it took me a minute to remember her name. That isn't because she's forgettable, it's because I fell so deeply into her first-person narration that she was just me. I connected with her on a deep level, because I think some part of me wants her "iron blood," her ability to be untouchable and become Kali the Destroyer, as her mother named her.
The story alternates between the present day, when Paula is a high-powered divorce attorney (an expert in breaking families) and Paula's childhood, when her mother moved her around the south from boyfriend to boyfriend, constantly reinventing their little family of two, with new names and new stories. Paula eventually finds her way to foster care, where she learns survival skills that let her be the shark she is in the courtroom.
There's a mystery involved, and a story about living in stories, but what's most fascinating is how far the characters unfold. Paula has an alcoholic boyfriend, and we don't know if he gets sober and marries her. She loves him as he is, imperfect. Paula herself doesn't become the queen of pretty and fluffy things (side note: there is attempted murder by kitten in this book); although she softens towards others, she retains her iron blood.
This is a book about becoming who you truly are, taking charge of your own story and understanding that others have separate tales to tell or journeys to walk. It's so different from everything else Jackson has written, but I still love it.
What can you read after
The Opposite of Everyone?
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