**Slight spoilers for first few chapters**
I just hope it doesn't turn out as a soap, seeing that it is over 20 chapters long...
No it doesn't. It's very, very good throughout, very close to equalling the quality of "If I asked". It's also interesting to note the difference between Amy's and Jenna's characterization of Jack and Ennis. Amy's boys are 23 years old. Jenna's are close to 40. The two writers do manage to convey that difference in ages just as well as Jake and Heath portrayed it, I think. The younger Jack is much more immediate quicksilver, the younger Ennis slightly more given to demonstrating his "panic" and distress related to his relationship with a man. Older Ennis is better able to hide it although those same feelings are still ruling his life at the outset of the fic and as he works through becoming "somebody new". Their older selves are more considered, more reflected, more deliberate in words and actions - not as jaunty......they demonstrate more life experience in the way they're written, the way they speak, the way they behave.
I think Jenna did an absolutely outstanding job. The scene where Jack quits Ennis and Ennis's subsequent behaviour are so well-written I could just see it happen in front of my eyes. Most subsequent scenes had me on tenterhooks during the ups and downs of the renewed and developing relationship. My only gripe about "Somebody New is one OC whose characterization vacillates far too much, IMO, - evidently adapted along the way based on the significant and strong reader feedback Jenna was getting as she was writing.
Jenna's going to write a sequel in a month's time as has been noted here and I'll sure be there.
This one is definitely in my top favourite 3 BBM fics. The other two are Amy's "If I asked" and Jenny's "When the Snow didn't come".
