This Is Not How It Ends

This Is Not How It Ends opens with Charlotte taking her beloved dog Sunny for a morning walk in beautiful Islamorada, Florida. Charlotte's first-person narrative begins: "I've heard it said that life is about choices. Paths stretch out ahead of us -- sometimes, we make conscious decisions and other times, fate intervenes and chooses for us." Indeed, Weinstein effectively illustrates how, had Charlotte taken a different route on her walk that morning, her life might have been unfolded entirely differently. Instead, she happens upon a little boy who asks if he can pet Sunny and suddenly suffers a medical emergency. When his father panics and freezes, Charlotte jabs the EpiPen into Jimmy's thigh and saves his life. Ironically, Charlotte is employed by a local doctor who has had success employing unconventional methodologies to treat allergies, and Jimmy becomes a patient.

Through alternating chapters, Charlotte relates how, two years earlier, she met Philip on a flight from Miami back to her Kansas City home where she was a teacher. Philip "came crashing down the narrow walkway," taking his anger out on a flight attendant because his first-class seat had "dissolved into economy." Once settled into his seat, however, he calmed down, bought drinks for his fellow passengers, and proceeded to charm Charlotte. Although he had been boorish, flaunting his financial status, he was undeniably worldly and sophisticated, with "something in his eyes that was too forgivable and too blue." And thus their relationship began over a discussion of Charlotte's limited travel experiences and love of literature. "I've been everywhere I need to go. Places you've never been . . . would never understand . . ." referring to "the stories that kept me alive and took me all over the worlds -- their destinations only rivaled by the depth of what I'd come to understand about living . . . about life. 'You don't always have to physically go somewhere to experience something magical.'"

Weinstein explores Charlotte's deep, but unsatisfying love for Philip, a man who plainly adores her and is able to provide her with every physical comfort, but fails to provide the deep emotional connection Charlotte craves. She agrees to give up her teaching career and move to Florida with him, but he refers to home as "[s]uch a fluid term." As Philip leaves Charlotte alone for extensive period of time while he travels the world on business, she becomes acquainted with Ben, the handsome chef and restaurateur who is still mourning his wife, and Jimmy. She finds herself increasingly drawn to Ben, even though she is devoted to Philip. Still, she finds herself wondering if Philip's commitment to her has waned, whether he has become bored with her, and if their engagement was a mistake. Their emotional distance leaves her frustrated, lonely, and bewildered by her own neediness. She wonders where and if she truly fits into Philip's world, despite his assurances that he loves her and misses her when they are apart.

Charlotte learns that Philip and Ben have a long-standing friendship, which only complicates her burgeoning feelings for Ben. All she had wanted was a live with Philip and she finds the connection she and Ben share horrifying. While Philip loves her, Ben listens to her. Her relationships with the two men are different, but each is intense.

And just as Charlotte's emotional turmoil threatens to tear her apart, Weinstein injects a heartwrenching turn of events that causes Charlotte, along with her readers, to view everything from a different perspective. Suddenly, Charlotte's world is again upended, but she gains new insight into her relationships with both Philip and Ben, as well as a deeper understanding of both men.

Weinstein's characters are fully developed and empathetic. Charlotte's struggle for the kind of love she has always wanted and her deep disappointment at not having found it with Philip is palpable and believable. Ben's and his son are reeling from the tragic loss of his wife, and his struggle to establish a new normal for himself and his child is portrayed credibly and compassionately. And Philip, the bigger-than-life businessman whose life, like Charlotte's, has been shaped by loss and abandonment, is a soulful revelation. His choices bring Charlotte to a place of "less thinking and more living" where she recognizes and appreciates his capacity for giving.

Weinstein weaves a tangle of longing, lack of fulfillment, and striving for more into a cohesive story about assumptions as to how love is or should be demonstrated, choices, forgiveness, and, ultimately, the power of love. Her writing is insightful and elegant, her examination of her characters' inner demons unsparing, but compassionate. This Is Not How It Ends is full of surprises that propel the story forward, never losing momentum until it reaches a conclusion that feels logical, natural, and somehow inevitable. Which is, of course, the point of Weinstein's poignant, engrossing tale.

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.