What We Leave Behind

by Rochelle B Weinstein

Overview

*A USA TODAY Bestseller*It is said that our lives are a sum total of the choices we make, which inevitably leaves us to wonder: what if? What if we had the chance to go back and live what could have been? What We Leave Behind hones in on the fleeting moments and stand-out events that irrevocably change our lives. The book chronicles the life and emotional growth of Jessica Parker as she frees herself from the past and moves forward with her future. At sixteen, Jessica is managing the emotional trauma of her father's death while surrendering to the profound pain of a failed first love. Jonas Levy, a twenty-two-year-old medical student, has abruptly walked out of Jessica's life after an intense summer romance, and the wounds are still raw. Is it possible to ever forget the boy you first gave your heart to? Jessica eventually moves on, and in her twenties, becomes a successful music supervisor in Los Angeles. She marries film producer, Marty Tauber, starts a family, and appears to have it all, until things slowly begin to unravel. The marriage struggles through a miscarriage and becomes harder and harder to sustain. With an unexpected phone call from New York, a secret from Jessica's past comes to light. As the rippling effects of her betrayal emerge, Jessica finds herself caught in the firestorm of long-hidden emotional trauma. Thrust into a modern day moral and ethical dilemma, Jessica must face the pain of her past or lose everything she holds dear. Will she be able to reconcile old feelings in time to salvage her marriage? An honest, tender, and poignant portrayal of love in its many forms, this heart wrenching novel will resonate with any woman who has questioned her past and wondered what could have been.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466236318
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	02/15/2012
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

Rochelle B. Weinstein lives in South Florida with her husband and twin sons. Her books include The Mourning After, Where We Fall, and the Spring 2018 release Somebody's Daughter. Please visit her at www.rochelleweinstein.com.

Editorial Reviews

A series of tragedies teaches one woman the difference between youthful passion and married love in Weinstein's debut romance. Jessica Parker is a spirited 16-year-old Angeleno living with her widowed mother and doing her best to hide her grief over her father's death. While visiting the hospital where her mother works, Jessica meets 22-year-old Harvard medical student Jonas Levy and sparks fly. Jonas' father, Adam, is dying of pulmonary fibrosis and his family is a fixture at the hospital that summer. Smitten with sexy Jonas and drawn to his close-knit family, she begins seeing him outside the hospital, despite the age difference--and despite Jonas' long-term girlfriend, Emily. Jessica falls head over heels and Jonas seems to reciprocate, but when Adam dies, Jonas abruptly ends the fling. Her heartache lingers, but Jessica moves on to film school and an enviable job as a music supervisor with famous Hollywood producer Marty Tauber. They eventually marry and have a child, and Jessica finds fulfillment in her family and career until a tragic accident puts her marriage in jeopardy. During this period of uncertainty, an explosive secret is revealed and Jessica is unexpectedly reunited with Jonas. Unsure of Marty's devotion and confronted with feelings she thought long buried, Jessica is forced to choose between her husband and the man she always considered the love of her life. Weinstein's novel is a bit uneven, with the dilemmas Jessica faces as an adult proving more compelling than her teenage romance with Jonas. It requires considerable skill to depict young love with freshness, let alone to convince readers Jessica's feelings are so extraordinary that even years later, after motherhood and a happy marriage, she would still take them as seriously as she did in adolescence. Unfortunately, the novel does not quite achieve these feats. The narrative is further weakened by Jessica's penchant for maudlin flights of self-psychologizing instead of allowing readers to infer her feelings through her behavior. But the story's twists and turns generate real tension, and Weinstein renders Jessica's feelings with enough complexity that her ultimate decision carries emotional weight. A soapy novel that strains credibility at times but still manages to tell a good love story.

Kirkus Reviews