Delightful, sweet book from Silver, I really enjoyed this novel, which takes us through Lydia Bird's grieving process for her recently deceased fiancee. I found the "sleep"alternate reality to be different and interesting, and cared about the main characters in the book. Would recommend.

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 really liked the first book by Josie Silver so I was excited when I was approved by NetGalley for this early release. The alternating views with “Sleep/Awake” bored me and I found myself skimming through the “Sleep” sections. Other than that, I felt like she had to grieve “her way”. There isn’t one way to grieve and she showed that. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early release in exchange for my honest review.

Loved this book! The story was heart wrenching and real. Even if you have not lost a loved one, this will wreck you. The emotion that Silver pours into this book and makes seem so real is astounding. You feel for Lydia in every page and every time she closes her eyes.
I did not love the ending, I liked it, but it will do. :) Highly recommend

A very unique approach to dealing with her fiance's death and the effects it has on Lydia's life. When Lydia is awake life goes on without her fiance but when she is asleep her dream life continues with her fiance alive and well. I finished the book, but I never really connected with the way the story was presented. Has received high marks and positive reviews...but not for me.

Get ready for an emotional ride when reading this book. I found myself in tears multiple times. I wasn’t expecting such a heavy feeling. Josie Silver weaves a tale that many women fear and can imagine experiencing. My next read will definitely be lighthearted.

I loved this book! this my second book by this author! received this copy from Netgalley! I can not wait to read more from this author!
I really love this cover and I loved the characters.

A strange story of a young woman Lydia who loses her fiance Freddie only to find him again in a parallel universe. Lydia struggles when "awake" to face reality, but escapes when "asleep" to continue her life with Freddie.

Rating: 4/5 ⭐️
(trigger warning: grief + miscarriage)
I just finished this book tonight and I loved it!! It was a slow burn with an amazing ending. You can almost feel the grief the main character is experiencing. ♥️ this book comes out March 3, 2020. Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for my free copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was an interesting one for me. I stayed up late multiple nights reading it - its melancholy message and tone wrung me out. It’s a book about grief and healing and hope, but it’s cutesy cover doesn’t do the message justice. I’d seen the cover floating around so much I requested it from @netgalley just based on the hype. Its actual content held a lot of depth and sadness. Normally I’m a big fan of emotional reads, but after this one, I might set aside those heavier books for now.

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<p><em>The Two Lives of Lydia Bird</em> starts with tragedy. Driving to Lydia's birthday dinner, Freddie is in a car accident that takes his life. Lydia's world is destroyed. She and Freddie, engaged to be married, have been together for over ten years, really ever since meeting as teens. He was her first and only love... and then suddenly, he was gone.</p>
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<p>Lydia is left to pick up the pieces of her shattered world, and where this book excels is in its depiction of grief and loss. Lydia's pain is not pretty or dignified -- she's a mess, and she remains a mess for a long, long time. Grief doesn't have a timetable. There's no quick fix or set number of months that the mourning should take. Lydia simply has to go through it, and fortunately, she has an incredibly giving and loving sister by her side every step of the way.</p>
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<p>Lydia also has a secret: The unusual pink pills that her mother gave her to help her sleep have a decidedly odd effect: When she takes a pill and falls asleep, Lydia is pulled into a different version of her own life, one in which the accident never happened and Freddie is very much alive. Soon, Lydia is torn between her bleak waking world and the promise of escape into a world that she knows can't be real -- but it's a world where she gets time with Freddie, gets to plan their wedding and enjoy their promised life together.</p>
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I liked The Two Lives of Lydia Bird very much, and would happily recommend it to anyone looking for a slightly different take on love and finding meaning in life.

This was a super slow read with the alternating points ,but the end was great . This book was graciously provided by the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Josie Silver’s warmth and humor make this a compelling read. Lydia Bird’s life takes a tragic turn when her fiancé, Freddie, is killed on her 28th Birthday. Her grief weighs heavy until she discovers an alternate reality where Freddie and her life with him still exists. She finds that there are trade offs, however, and living two lives partially is not as fulfilling as living one life fully. A lovely story about finding one’s way out of the darkness and finding one’s self along the way.

I enjoyed this book, but it did drag a bit in the middle for me. At the 60% point I considered not finishing it because I felt like the story wasn't going to move passed her grief. Instead of moving on, she spent all of that time wallowing and trying to stay in the past. Luckily, it changed not long after, and I started to enjoy it again. It ends as a heartfelt story about moving on and learning what people can mean in your life. Josie Silver is creating a fascinating niche for herself that I think will make her popular with readers for years to come.

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird follows Lydia Bird as she navigates her grief after losing her fiance Freddie in a car accident. Nearly a month after his death, Lydia is still struggling from losing the love of her life, staying in her pajamas for days at a time, not leaving the house, barely sleeping. After some intervening on her mother’s part, Lydia is prescribed a new sleeping pill from her doctor to help her sleep. With her family’s insistence, Lydia enters her bedroom for the first time since Freddie died and falls asleep thanks to her new sleeping pills. She dreams of Freddie, vividly, like he’s still alive, and soon, Lydia starts to believe that her dreams are taking her to a world where Freddie is still alive. From there, the book alternates between Lydia’s days in a world without Freddie, and her nights in a world where he’s still alive.
This book had an intriguing premise and lovely writing, but I just couldn’t get into it. Unfortunately, I had to DNF it after only a few chapters. I loved that it kicked into the story right away, with Lydia quickly entering her dreams of Freddie within the first couple chapters, but the story still felt like it was dragging. I like books that are exciting and have more going on, but this one just couldn’t hold my interest. There would be pages at a time of just Lydia’s thoughts and no interactions with anyone.
I feel like this is a book where you just have to sit down and READ, with nothing else to do, to make it through. I’m a college student and pretty busy so I had to continuously pick it up and put it down, but there didn’t seem to be anything drawing me in each time, making it hard to continue. I do feel like if I had more time, I would pick this one up again and try to get through it, so if it sounds interesting to you, I would still definitely give it a chance.

*takes a deep breath and dries tears*
This book will make you feel all the feels. Some of it (ok, a lot) is sad but please don’t shy away from it because of that. It’s so freaking good and you’ll miss out. This book definitely made me want to hold those I love a little tighter.
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Lydia is an amazing character and I just loved her! Her grief over the death of her fiancé is heart wrenching. What is conveyed throughout this story is that it’s ok to grieve and there’s no time limit on grief. I loved that her family was there for her and while they nudged her toward getting back to her life, they didn’t rush her or tell her she needed to get over it. There was not one character in this book that I didn’t like.
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When Lydia starts having these dreams in which Freddie is alive and their lives are moving on normally, the effect it has on her is heartbreaking. She just gets stuck in this limbo between what her life is and seeing what could’ve been via these dreams. She gets to a point where she knows she can’t live like that and that she’ll have to make some tough choices. That realization sends her on a journey of self discovery and causes her to realize all that she still has and all the happiness still ahead.
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Everything about this book was perfect: the plot, the characters, the overall message. There isn’t a right or wrong way to make your way through grief and really, we don’t ever completely stop feeling the loss of someone we love. But it’s ok that eventually the loss stops stinging so badly, you’re not forgetting that person. They’d want you to keep moving towards that light at the end of the tunnel.
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As you can tell, I’d definitely recommend this book.

Lydia and Freddie have been together for over a decade and are engaged to be married. It’s Lydia’s birthday and Freddie is rushing to her birthday dinner when he gets into a car accident and dies. Now her entire world is flipped upside down as she has to cope with the death of the love of her life. While trying to cope with her loss she finds a way to be with Freddie in an alternate life. What if he didn’t die? This is what her life could have been like. Now she lives in two worlds, one with Freddie and one without.

I really loved this book. You know right from the beginning that Freddie is going to die since it’s in the synopsis of the book, yet I still felt horrible for Lydia when it happened. I felt her grief so much and I even cried a few times with her. Every emotion she was going through I really felt. I was so proud when she was trying things and I felt so bad for her when there were days she just couldn’t handle life.

I thought there was going to be more romance in this book than there was but honestly I’m happy there wasn’t. It was more about Lydia going through the grief process and trying to continue her life. She has a strong support group that helped her through everything and I really loved them all. Her Mom, sister Elle and Jonah were all great characters and all helped Lydia in different ways. This was such a fantastic book that I’ll be thinking about for quite some time.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars- I'm surprised I liked this as much as I did because I got off to a slow start with it. The writing flows and I felt everything our characters felt. Looking forward to more by this author.

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird tells the story of Lydia, whose fiance, Freddie, died on the way to her birthday dinner. She struggles with her daily life in the aftermath and is prescribed a sleeping pill. When she takes the pill, she dreams of Freddie, and the dreams feel more real than real life. She looks forward to seeing him and living out how their life could have gone. 


The book is told in alternating parts, awake and asleep. I was really into it at first and didn't want to put it down. I looked forward to the back-and-forth between sleeping Lydia and awake Lydia and wanted to see how it all eventually unfolded. But Jonah made that impossible. Have you ever read a book where there was a character who just grated on your nerves to the point that you couldn't enjoy any of it? That was Jonah. 


Jonah is Lydia's childhood friend and Freddie's best friend. In fact, Freddie died in his car accident after swinging by to pick Jonah up for Lydia's birthday because Jonah had had car trouble. Jonah barely had a scratch. It was around the time of the grief workshop he somewhat guilted Lydia into attending that I stopped being able to tolerate his character.


The book started great and has an interesting premise, but I just got to where I couldn't stand any part with Jonah. (And to be honest, a fear was that the finale would be him and Lydia winding up together, because that's where a story like this usually leads.)

—l y d i a b i r d—
TW/CW: grief/loss, miscarriage
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This book really grew on me. I have to be honest, I disliked the first half altogether. It was a downright struggle to get through. Part of that is that I generally don’t do well in this genre - romance isn’t my thing (except with a very specific few books). Part of it is that this book is challenging, particularly in the beginning, as it slogs through thick, visceral, unending grief.
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This is to Josie Silver’s credit: I felt Lydia’s grief. I have lost close family members before and so much of her grief was relatable (almost too much!). The parallel lives that Lydia experiences (this is not a spoiler but in one, her fiancé is dead, in the other, he is very much alive) are interesting as they require her to grapple with the immense feelings associated with loss. What worked here was how in touch Silver was with Lydia’s grief. Her love of Freddie felt very real. Her relationships with her sister and mother were also strengths of this novel and deeply complex and captivating.
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What didn’t work was a number of things - some aspects of the plot were dropped too quickly and easily and did not really seem to help move things (I don’t want to spoil, so I won’t name them). There were also plot points that seemed to come from nowhere that I found somewhat perplexing.
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In all, this is an engaging story and worth sticking around on. I almost DNF’ed a couple times. I am so glad I got to the ending which was, in my opinion, perfection.
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Thank you to @netgalley and @penguinrandomhouse for a digital copy in exchange for an honest review! Appreciate ya!
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3.5⭐️