What do you think is the significance of the title, "The Opposite of Everyone"?

What do you think is the significance of the title, "The Opposite of Everyone"?

I feel like the title refers to Paula and the fact that she seems to always been in opposition to the people in her life. Her relationships rarely seem to exist without tension. With her mother, the opposition occurs when she calls the police and then later when she is estranged from her. Her relationship with Birdwine is similar . . .she needs him and respects him, but can't sustain a relationship with him. Her relationship with her best friend in boarding school ends in opposition as they fight right as the girl departs the school. She approaches sex as more of a conquest than most women do. Even her profession puts her in opposition to others.

Paula is also how I feel. She did not grow up in a healthy childhood. She is not your typical girl. Despite her childhood, she still became a lawyer. How she acts as a lawyer is due to her unhealthy childhood. She was the type of lawyer that would go out for many one-night stands. Not your typical image of a lawyer. She's the odd lawyer that loves to inflict venom on her clients. Many lawyers are known for being sharks. She is worse than that. She is unique.

Paula feels as if she is the only person to have ever "lifted herself up by her bootstraps." She is intelligent like a fox and durable like asphalt, but she has a creamy core which doesn't really fit her personality. But she feels that she is unique and different. We are all unique and different. Every person who reads this discussion has a different and probably equally traumatic story to tell about their life. The circumstances of each person's life will be different, but the impact they have on the individual is usually just as grand and all encompassing as Paula's childhood has been on her. So she isn't the opposite of everyone, but rather a person living the life she was given to lead!

I think it fits beautifully with the protagonist, Paula's character.

she has always felt like an outsider, looking into the 'normal' world where families interact, and grow up and old together.

Paula always felt different from those around her, from an early age as her mother shunted her from place to place. Genetically, she is a hodge-podge of nationalities, races and DNA. She has no connection to nationality and cannot pin herself down.

I agree with everyone else that the title fits Paula very well but it also fits many of the characters in this book. Kai, Birdwine, are also the opposite of everyone. The only person who is more normal is Julian.

This was a question in my mind as I read the book. I am still not sure exactly what the author meant. Jackson has created two highly unusual characters. Kai is highly unusual as a Southern - Hindu- Hippie- mother. Her behavior and "live for the moment" life style are very different from the typical mother.
Paula is unusual as a result of being brought up by this life style and suffering the results of her mother's choices. Her ability to have risen to the status of Lawyer is also opposite from what one may have expected from her. However a large factor with Paula is her ambiguous appearance that seems multi-racial and confusing to all. This seems to have left her without any group to identify with.

Paula sees herself as different from everyone else.

Birdwine says this to Paula somewhere in the book. She does have defiant behavior syndrome. She has many races of blood in her genetic history. She is mean on the exterior, but she does have a soft underside.

The main characters have two faces or two sides to their personalities. Is this not a part of some Indian folklore? Void one have imagined Paula tuning out the way she did or even some of the girls from the reform school.

I agree with the fact that Paula feels not part of this world of "normal" families. Paula has the ability to tell it like it is to the clients, no sugar coating it.

I agree with others above - Paula and her life experiences were not part of what is considered normal, everyday experiences. Her life with or without her mother was indeed anything but normal. And so with her brother and others in her life.