Title: Someone Else’s Love Story

Author: Joshilyn Jackson

Published: 2013

Read in: April 2016

Two sentence summary: Young mother falls for the guy who saves her and her son’s life In a botched convenience store robbery. Nevermind, one-sentence summary.

There is something to be said about going into a book knowing nothing about it. That’s generally how I like to go in. Because I borrow books from the library I often have to wait a while (days, weeks, sometimes months) before they come in. This can be fun because by the time I download them I can’t remember why I chose them in the first place. Sometimes, though, this process bites you in the butt.

Anyhow. I think with Someone Else’s Love Story I thought it was going to be one thing and it was completely different. Usually when it comes to romance I look for light and easy, formulaic with a nice ending. I’m not gonna lie. This, then, wasn’t a romance, even though there’s that word love in the title. It wasn’t lighthearted, but also wasn’t tear-jerking like JoJo Moyes. It was sweet and sad. If I had one criticism throughout, some of the villains (i.e. Shandi’s stepmom) were just a little too villainous. The characters were forced to be too much of a character. That makes it almost painful. On the other hand, a lot of formulaic romance novels do that very same thing. At least in this instance the anger, the emotions and surprise reactions of characters were fresh and revealing.

Favorite character was definitely William’s best friend, Paula. You wonder if her intentions are one thing and then they clearly aren’t. Her reaction to learning Shandi’s backstory (specifically the story of son Natty’s inception) was the only reaction to that backstory I could relate to. A spin-off with Paula may be a worthy read.

William’s twist at the end with was the loveliest, though. For me, I didn’t see it coming, and those are the best.

Not the greatest, but not the worst. I might give the author another try, but I’m not planning on continuing this series.