[XMU]≡ [PDF] Backseat Saints Joshilyn Jackson 9780446582346 Books

Backseat Saints Joshilyn Jackson 9780446582346 Books

Download As PDF : Backseat Saints Joshilyn Jackson 9780446582346 Books

Backseat Saints Joshilyn Jackson 9780446582346 Books

The defining moment of Rose Mae Lolley's existence occurred when she was eight years old and her mother took off, leaving Rose with an abusive drunk of a father. The only means of keeping her sanity was Jim Beverly, Rose's childhood best friend and later boyfriend. The two planned to spend forever together.

One night, just before high school graduation, Jim got into a car accident after a party and vanished. Left with nothing, Rose Mae left her father's home and Alabama altogether, determined to start a new life.

Now in her mid-twenties, she's got one -- as Ro Grandee, wife of Thom Grandee, son of a wealthy Texas family. On the surface, Ro seems like she's living the ideal. But behind closed doors, the truth is much darker. Thom is just as angry and violent as her father was, possibly even worse. Ro has all but forgotten what it feels like to live without painful bruises and mending bones.

Suddenly a chance encounter in an airport makes Ro see her situation crystal clear -- it's either Thom or her, not both, who can live. It's time to choose, and Ro chooses herself.

Yet as she quickly learns, it's not all that easy to completely change your life, especially when you've essentially been living some variation of it since childhood. Where do you go? How do you go about it? And worse, how to keep the man you know is capable of murder from ending it all?

As Ro transitions back into Rose Mae, she also realizes that she needs to address many of the issues that have haunted her throughout most of her life. What really happened the day her mother left? What really happened to Jim Beverly? The future depends upon her getting the answers.

Although some readers may find the ending a bit too convenient, Jackson writes an enjoyable novel with engaging characters, just as real as anyone we may know in our everyday lives.


Tags : Backseat Saints [Joshilyn Jackson] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b> Enthralling...pulls you in and won't let you out until the last page. - Kathryn Stockett, bestselling author of The Help</i></b> Rose Mae Lolley's mother disappeared when she was eight,Joshilyn Jackson,Backseat Saints,Grand Central Publishing,0446582344,Family Life,Psychological,Abused women;Fiction.,Abusive men;Fiction.,Spousal abuse;Fiction.,Abused women,Abusive men,American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +,FICTION Family Life General,FICTION Southern,FICTION Women,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Family Life,Fiction Psychological,General,Spousal abuse

Backseat Saints Joshilyn Jackson 9780446582346 Books Reviews

I loved this book! Ms. Jackson not only writes well, she presents the dilemma of the abused woman (and child, and child of an alcoholic) fairly accurately. Most people who have not been in that situation tend to think if someone was just smart enough, they would get out. And many people believe they would never put up with it. The dynamics are far more complicated. I am now hooked on this author!
I read Jossilyn Jackson's first book Gods in Alabama on the recommendation of a student. While I was reading it, I retold the story to my husband whenever a funny passage amused me. I ended up telling him basically the entire story, so he read the book next. Backseat Saints is not a sequel, but it does continue the story of a character who was important but not prominent in "Gods." You should read Gods in Alabama because it is a wonderful book, not because it is important to read to understand "Saints." Jackson writes stories of the South, and since I live in Alabama, I understand all of the references, but it is not necessary to be a Southerner to enjoy the novel. Like any good book, the themes about love and acceptance are universal. And, although the novel is about an abused wife, it is so much more than that. Jackson portrays women who look inside themselves to find they are more than what they believed they were. She does this using humor and crafting her characters into more than just stereotypical labels. It is easy to label; it is not easy to create a multifaceted character who forces a reader to look beyond his or her preconceptions.

The measure of a good book to me is whether I will tell my friends and students to read the book. In fact, with a great book, I become the pushy person with an opinion who keeps talking until you agree with her. Whenever I recommend a book to someone, I want them to read the book because only then will they understand the rightness of my opinion. Reading is my entertainment more than anything else, and Jackson's books make me feel as if I am enlightening my mind with Masterpiece Theater as opposed to trashing my mind with Jersey Shore, yet at the same time, I enjoy her books more than any of my guilty pleasures reading. In other words, it is like chocolate without the calories. So read this book, and then read her other books, then you can feel smart while doing something fun!
Rose Mae Lolley was a secondary character in Gods in Alabama, and since that book was told in Arlene Fleet's voice, we don't really know Rose Mae's true story.

In Backseat Saints, we are gifted with the versions of Rose Mae. There is the little girl of eight, whose mother has walked out on her. A version that continues into high school. She is full of mouthiness and is a guy magnet. But she picks the bad ones.

As Ro, she is married to Thom Grandee, a mix of good and bad. Because we see so much of the abuse almost immediately, it is impossible to realize the good parts right away. The parts that keep Ro hooked.

But something else is stirring up inside Ro these days, beginning on the day she meets a Gypsy at the airport. It's the pull of another journey a journey to find her mother.

Ro's journey (she has taken on another version now as Ivy Wheeler) carries her from Amarillo, Texas, to Chicago, and then to Fruiton, Alabama, where she grew up. Ultimately she arrives in Berkeley, California.

Will Rose Mae find her mother? And when she does, will she discover the truth of why her mother left? Or will she find something completely different under a blanket of untruths?

The ending of this story crept up on me and I didn't see this version coming. I could have guessed, but the unfolding drama left me wanting so much more of these characters and their stories. And perhaps more from the characters who were not primary ones in this tale. At the end, I enjoyed reading the author's truths about how she came to write these characters...and what might lie ahead. Five stars!
The defining moment of Rose Mae Lolley's existence occurred when she was eight years old and her mother took off, leaving Rose with an abusive drunk of a father. The only means of keeping her sanity was Jim Beverly, Rose's childhood best friend and later boyfriend. The two planned to spend forever together.

One night, just before high school graduation, Jim got into a car accident after a party and vanished. Left with nothing, Rose Mae left her father's home and Alabama altogether, determined to start a new life.

Now in her mid-twenties, she's got one -- as Ro Grandee, wife of Thom Grandee, son of a wealthy Texas family. On the surface, Ro seems like she's living the ideal. But behind closed doors, the truth is much darker. Thom is just as angry and violent as her father was, possibly even worse. Ro has all but forgotten what it feels like to live without painful bruises and mending bones.

Suddenly a chance encounter in an airport makes Ro see her situation crystal clear -- it's either Thom or her, not both, who can live. It's time to choose, and Ro chooses herself.

Yet as she quickly learns, it's not all that easy to completely change your life, especially when you've essentially been living some variation of it since childhood. Where do you go? How do you go about it? And worse, how to keep the man you know is capable of murder from ending it all?

As Ro transitions back into Rose Mae, she also realizes that she needs to address many of the issues that have haunted her throughout most of her life. What really happened the day her mother left? What really happened to Jim Beverly? The future depends upon her getting the answers.

Although some readers may find the ending a bit too convenient, Jackson writes an enjoyable novel with engaging characters, just as real as anyone we may know in our everyday lives.