Two lives. Two loves. One impossible choice. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club Pick One Day in December . . . “I read The Two Lives of Lydia Bird in a single sitting. What a beautiful, emotional gift Josie Silver has given us.”—Jodi PicoultWritten with Josie Silver’s trademark warmth and wit, The Two Lives of Lydia Bird is a powerful and thrilling love story … Two Lives of Lydia Bird is a powerful and thrilling love story about the what-ifs that arise at life’s crossroads, and what happens when one woman is given a miraculous chance to answer them.
Lydia and Freddie. Freddie and Lydia. They’d been together for more than a decade and Lydia thought their love was indestructible. But she was wrong. On Lydia’s twenty-eighth birthday, Freddie died in a car accident.
So now it’s just Lydia, and all she wants is to hide indoors and sob until her eyes fall out. But Lydia knows that Freddie would want her to try to live fully, happily, even without him. So, enlisting the help of his best friend, Jonah, and her sister, Elle, she takes her first tentative steps into the world, open to life—and perhaps even love—again.
But then something inexplicable happens that gives her another chance at her old life with Freddie. A life where none of the tragic events of the past few months have happened.
Lydia is pulled again and again through the doorway to her past, living two lives, impossibly, at once. But there’s an emotional toll to returning to a world where Freddie, alive, still owns her heart. Because there’s someone in her new life, her real life, who wants her to stay.
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Lydia and Freddie have been together since they were teenagers. Freddie is killed in a car accident to his way home to celebrate Lydia’s twenty- eighth birthday. The opening had me hooked to see and feel how Lydia dealt with grief. In her dreams Freddie is alive. This is where the book fell apart for me as it went on forever. I became unconnected and my mind started wandering while trying to read the book. I think the premise was interesting but I think the execution of this book would be to make it a short story.
Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
2.5 stars
Wow! I loved this book! It is a beautiful story about grief and loss, but it is also very hopeful.
Lydia Bird is the main character and very early in the story her fiancée dies. In trying to cope with her loss she has this alternate reality where she is seeing their life play out in her dreams. All of the characters in the story were extremely likable. It’s the sort of book where you will miss the characters after you’re done reading it. I just adored everything about this book. It could have been a very depressing story, but it was not.
This is the first ever book I won a copy of on Goodreads, and I was so excited because I liked One Day In December. But this absolutely blew me away! I highly recommend you read this book!!
I loved One Day in December and was looking forward to reading Josie’s new book, The Two Lives of Lydia Bird. This book was as emotional and as beautifully written as One Day in December. It reminded me of one of my favorite romantic movies, Sliding Doors. Lydia’s life shatters when her fiance, Freddie, dies on her birthday. She struggles with her grief until she accidentally discovers a way to visit a parallel life, where Freddie is alive, and they are still together. Lydia is torn between her life now and what could have been.
I liked this book a lot, but I didn’t love it as much as One Day in December. The one thing I didn’t love is how much time was spent on “what could have been” life. I was more interested in reading about Lydia’s “real” life, where she had to cope with her grief and learn to live without Freddie. I wanted to read more about her relationship with Jonah, to see it grow and develop, especially since it played such a pivotal role in Lydia’s story.
I would highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy angsty and emotional love stories and anyone who loved Sliding Doors.
Once again, Josie Silver writes the unique kind of story that is both heartwarming and incredibly gut-wrenching. The seemingly simple journey of one Lydia Bird and the true two lives she lives was at times unfathomable and dare I say, understandable. The unbelievable sense of loss she feels as her dear Freddie is taken from her way too soon sets her on a path that she takes one painstaking step at a time.
Silver uses the clever notion of separating the book into ‘awake’ and ‘asleep’ chapters as Lydia lives in a constant state of despair, not knowing how to move on. Her grief can be felt deep within the pages of this book and I often wondered if she could ever be happy again. The ‘asleep’ portion of this book is where the fantastical side of this story lives and uses the ‘what if’ kind of notion to give a bit of solace to our struggling heroine.
With the bestie of both Freddie and Lydia in one Jonah Jones left behind more than once, our girl must find a new path in which to survive her new normal. The other Bird women, mom and sister Elle, provide the stability she needs even when she doesn’t want it. All Lydia wants is for all of this new-found life of hers to be gone, wanting to exist in her ‘asleep’ life more often than not. And it remains up to those around her to keep her in the present, even as she fights it tooth and nail.
I will say that Silver guides both us and the fragile Lydia through a reawakening of sorts as she gathers the strength to finally find out who she really is, without her Freddie by her side. It both shocks and soothes her very being and I was proud of her decisions at the books end. My one sticking point is that there were a couple of loose ends that definitely provided more of a dramatic story and ending and the what ifs left me a bit unsettled.
But overall, this writing style from Josie Silver is welcomed and doesn’t allow me to turn away even for a minute. A true page-turner from start to finish, The Two Lives of Lydia Bird is thought-provoking and emotional and well worth reading.
4 solid stars!
Novel construction with a heroine SO reluctant to move on
This story kept me reading because I just HAD to believe that Lydia would push through all of her depression and grief to restart her life. Her little pink pill world is strangely inventive as Lydia can’t seem to control it yet seems to favor it over the life she can influence. The story’s construction was unusual and author Josie Silver can create some top-notch imagery,
If only I had liked Lydia more. Throughout most of the book Lydia’s purposeful self isolation is a bit too selfish, especially where Jonah, the third musketeer in Lydia and Freddie’s close friendship, is concerned. And though she seems to believe she’s close with her sister Elle and the mother who raised them single-handed, it seemed to me she barely tolerated their involvement in her life until she finds they are no longer ready to rationalize away her behavior. Fortunately, Lydia does change and mature by the story’s end.
Overall, I found Lydia’s story thought-provoking and well-written, a moving tale of the crushing weight of grief and the struggle to overcome it when a close loved one suddenly and unexpectedly dies. In Freddie’s case, his youth and vigor, paired with Lydia’s hopes for an imminent happy marriage, made his death that degree more tragic. But I felt the story was a bit drawn-out with unnecessary detail and the darkness almost swallowed up the bits of joy along the way.
Thanks to Random House publishers and NetGalley for providing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest review.
The Two Lives of Lydia Bird
Josie Silver
#PenguinRandomHouse #BallantineBooks #NetGalley
I thoroughly enjoyed Silver’s debut novel, One Day in December, but with this one she has earned her place on my automatic-buy list of authors for her future endeavors. I have highlighted scores of passages in this story as I found Silver’s way with words simply profound and poignant throughout.
This is a story about life-long love, life-long friendships, family bonds and grief. Silver writes about these things as if she’s lived them, knows them intimately and invites the reader to experience them viscerally. She takes us through the highs of young love that will seemingly last forever, through the heartbreak and loneliness of gut-wrenching loss, and finally to the epiphany that is growth and self-discovery. Silver so expertly constructs Lydia’s world that we are there celebrating with her, crying with her, lending a shoulder to her and ultimately cheering her on.
And while yes, Silver writes a fantastic love story, her family/friend storylines are just as involving and important (as they were in her debut novel). The Bird women are strong and resilient in their bond, and the supporting cast of friends/acquaintances all play crucial roles in Lydia’s life.
At its core, this is a story about losing one’s self to grief, about clawing one’s way through to the dawning of a new life and recognizing the very real strength and courage that that takes.
Highly recommend.
Much thanks to #PenguinRandomHouse, #BallantineBooks and #NetGalley for providing me the ARC. The opinions are strictly my own.
I absolutely loved this book. It was poignant and heartbreaking, but also so hopeful and empowering. It resonated so strongly within me that I actually read it slower, so that I could absorb every word. I wouldn’t categorize The Two Lives of Lydia Bird as a romance, however, even though there are romance elements. I found it to be more about grief, coping with loss, friendship, and moving forward.
I felt so many emotions reading this book and was drawn into Lydia’s story immediately. The writing was raw and painfully honest and I found myself highlighting passage after passage. The characters and emotions were so relatable and more than once I found myself crying for their heartaches and also for their joys. I’ve seen and read other novels with similar plot lines, but I felt that the author handled it in a really unique and touching way. I wasn’t surprised with the trajectory of the story and thought it came together really beautifully. I appreciated that the author showed all the stumbles and struggles that our characters face as they confront their feelings and emotions and that there wasn’t some magic bullet to wipe it all away. The relationships and dynamics between the Bird women was especially heartfelt. I loved Elle and Lydia and thought often of my own sister as I read this novel.
I know that many will compare this novel with Josie Silver’s debut, One Day in December, but to me they are very different types of books. I think the emotional impact is similar, but readers should not go into this one expecting a purely romantic read. To me, this book is more about facing unimaginable heartbreak and coming out stronger on the other side, no matter how long it takes you. It’s about finding strength (within yourself and with the help of others) and being brave enough to keep on going. A beautiful novel from start to finish and I’m sure it will be one of my favorites from 2020.
*I voluntarily read an advance review copy of this book*
Reviewed by Rachel and Sharon Thérèse
Goodness! Stepping into The Two Lives of Lydia Bird isn’t just an unexpected experience; it’s a journey of heartbreak, smiles and fragile struggles. It’s a story of unwarranted feelings of guilt, clinging to bygones and learning to let it go by facing the future with all one’s might. The author of One Day in December has an uncanny knack for pulling the reader in from word go and to appreciate Lydia’s two lives, you simply have to dive into the book, leaving all thoughts of what could happen behind. Why? Because Lydia has narrated her story with every unfeigned emotion possible at her perfectly imperfect pace of recovery.
“Travelling back and forth, visiting a place where my grief doesn’t exist, where extraordinary pain hasn’t irrevocably changed me … it was magnificent. Honestly, it was.”
Grief. We all deal with it in different ways. Lydia’s trying to safeguard her heart, so we tried hard not to judge how she overcame her long ineradicable nights. We can’t say the remedy delighted us but if the shoe fits… She doesn’t want to be coddled by those who are concerned for her well-being, just left alone—and not exactly in misery either, but in peace. Here, we have to point out that peace of mind without even mentioning one’s health has a high price, so could the remedy blunder her awakening hours. Let’s see.
“The price of dreaming about him is higher than I could ever hope to pay; it’s a higher price than anyone should ever have to pay.”
To say the prologue is interesting would be putting it mildly. We’re gifted with the whisper of a character who must have impressed Lydia because otherwise, where would her story have taken us. Ahh … Silver has so much in store for her readers, therefore all we can say is keep reading because we promise you will be delighted and amazed in equal measure.
“You’ve really surprised me, Freddie.”
“Just doing my job.”
“Your job, huh?”
“Making you happy.”
Nobody knows how you would feel or indeed react when you lose the love of your life. Lydia’s childhood sweetheart, Freddie, has been taken far too soon. Their seemingly normal life shaken beyond its core. Silver tells their story from when they were children so you’re taken from past to present throughout. To fully appreciate Lydia’s sorrow and the way she grieves, this was vital.
The relationships explored in this story were beyond amazing! Lydia’s life has truly been turned upside down and understandably her family and friends are waiting to pick up the pieces and nurse her through the heartbreak. What we truly loved about these characters was their unflinching honesty when interacting with Lydia. Silver has a great knack of giving the reader dialogue that seemed so achingly real and true to life.
“Grief is an odd thing. It’s mine and no one can do it for me, but there’s this whole supporting cast of silent actors around me waiting in the wings.”
We’re sure the subject matter of this story is one that may put many readers off but we urge you not to. This writer delicately balances high emotion and warm wit and at times we cried but mostly smiled albeit with tear-stained cheeks. By the end of the story, we felt we’d lived through Lydia’s stages of grief. Our only complaint was we felt the ending was a tad rushed. An epilogue would have completed the story off perfectly and given us the closure we felt we deserved but maybe that’s just us wanting more Lydia. Maybe Lydia had given us enough. Bravo, Silver!
I really loved this story. It definitely has some interesting twists in it; a story of love and loss with a very different take on dealing with the aftermath! It is well written, with characters who are very easy to engage with.
Lydia, Freddie and Jonah are the three main characters in this story. Lydia is dealing with losing the love of her life, as is Jonah, his best friend and neither are doing it very well. I really felt for the two of them, I felt their struggle and their despair.
This is a tragic story in many ways and definitely tugs at the heartstrings, but it is also a story of what might have been and of hope. There always has to be hope! I recommend this book; I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I absolutely love this novel. Josie Silver has written a beautiful story which follows Lydia as she grieves for the loss of a loved one. Having lost people very close to me, I was jealous of her experience at times…… until I wasn’t. I had a steady stream of tears flowing throughout most of the book. It certainly takes you on an emotional roller coaster ride and I loved this!
I adore Lydia. Life really isn’t fair at times and I thought the author wrote her story perfectly. I could feel the emotion but it didn’t drown the story that is being told. I found Lydia to be brave but could totally understand her struggles and her need to keep hold of the past.
The supporting characters in this book really enhanced the story. In particular Lydia’s mum, her sister and Jonah Jones. The loss of Freddie brought so much sadness and worry to their lives which saddened me, but they were able to put a smile on my face and make me laugh out loud too.
Hope is one of the things that I took from reading this book. No matter what your darkest day looks like there is always hope that the next day will be brighter. This story is a must read. I’m certain it is one that will stay with you for a long time, I know it will with me.
This is an interesting and engaging novel that held my interest from beginning to end.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Lydia and Freddie are engaged and been together for years. On Lydia’s 28th birthday, Freddie is killed in a car accident. Lydia is given sleeping pills to help her sleep. While sleeping, she is reunited with Freddie. It is like he never died. Lydia wants to sleep her life away and be with Freddie. While awake she must face the truth that Freddie is gone. I loved this book and its characters. Lydia is so real and vulnerable. You feel everything Lydia does. Her happiness that Freddie is alive in her dreams and her sadness and grief while awake and missing Freddie. I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.
The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver is a great romantic read that delves also into the grief process after acutely losing the love of your life.
In this story, we find Lydia at a total loss after losing her fiancé, Freddie, in an MVC. He died, his passenger and friend, Jonah did. This is the story of acceptance and learning to live the life given despite being dealt a huge blow.
The pace of this book is more of a slow burn. I truly enjoyed the concept of alternating chapters of “Awake” and “Asleep”, and some of the alternating universes associated. Without giving more away, because really the concept to me is ingenious, it was amazing to read the what ifs and the surreal-ness that Lydia experiences in trying to surround herself with the past she wants, but also with the future that she truly needs.
It was very emotional, and made me teary- eyed more then one time (but in a good way). I truly enjoyed the journey I took with Lydia and I am so glad that she had the ending that she needed and deserved.
All of this heavy subject matter in a beautiful and lyrical prose that was surprisingly easy and light to read and that truly touched me and will be something that I will read again and again.
5/5 stars
The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver a five-star read that may just be the best read of 2020. I adored One day in December so had such high hopes of this story, and I was not disappointed, Josie Silver writes about grief and loss in such a caring and compassionate way, they just made it so easy to understand where Lydia is coming from, you feel her heart breaking, you will cry buckets along side her. This is a great story and one that you can’t miss, there is a story within the story, and you will not see the twist coming, its brilliantly done. If you read one novel in 2020 make it this one, I know you won’t be disappointed, and I am sure much like me you will be going back for a re-read.