The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver was a captivating read. What happens if your finance dies? What happens if you can answer the "what if" questions if he didn't die?

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird was at times heartbreaking, you could feel the pain from the pages, but you could also feel the characters. I would recommend it.

My rating is 4 out of 5 stars as the ending felt rushed vs the rest of the pace of the book.

"It was never about getting over Freddie Hunter. It doesn't work that way, despite what my doctor's chart might say. There isn't a handy grief blueprint. You don't get over losing someone you love in six months or two years or twenty, but you do have to find a way to carry on living without feeling as if everything that comes afterward is second best...Everyone has to find their own way back, and if they're lucky they'll have people who love them to hold their hand."

Ok, guys, I'm not crying, you're crying. Well, honestly, I probably got caught crying at least a few times throughout this book. Lydia and I have a lot in common, so I was a little nervous about reading her story, but I really wanted to see where she went with this. I was happy that while she does flip back and forth between the two worlds, SHE controls when she does that and life in her alternate world isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Losing someone you love is hard and messy and difficult to work through and I definitely relived so many feelings along with Lydia. I found this to be an amazing representation of how it felt to me. I actually stopped reading at like 92% through to go to bed and save just a little for the next day to stretch out the story a bit, since I wasn't quite ready to leave them. A definite must-read.

I received an ARC from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved Josie Silver's One Day in December and vividly remember tearing up while reading it, so I was beyond thrilled to receive an ARC of her newest novel The Two Lives of Lydia Bird.

And it did not disappoint.

Silver's writing makes you feel Lydia's grief as strongly as she does but you're also lucky enough to share in all of her successes - in both her real life and the sleeping-pill-induced fantasy life she lives with her late fiance. Watching Lydia (and Jonah overcome - and not forget - the pain of her past was so inspiring.

There was less romance than I expected, but honestly, it wasn't necessary anyway. This was about the emotional (and often heartbreaking) journey of a woman trying to navigate an entirely new life.

One minute Lydia Bird had it all and the next the love of her life was gone. Car accident, on her birthday. Gone. All she has left is grief. She has her mum and her sister Elle, but Freddy is never coming back. But then he does. During that terrible period after Freddy, when she can't even sleep she gets a prescription for sleeping pills and when she finally takes them she is transported to a life before the accident, a life where it never happened, a life where Freddy lives. But as time passes and Lydia in real life continues to live and change and become a different person will she be able to be the same Lydia she is in her sleeping world?

You won't want to put this funny, yet heart-wrenching story down! Lydia Bird is thrilled to be marrying the love of her life, Freddie Hunter, in just a few short months when he dies in a car accident. The story line follows two paths, one where Lydia struggles to figure out who she is without Freddie and one where she is able to continue on her path as if nothing ever happened and Freddie Hunter is still alive and well.

I absolutely fell in love with Lydia and was cheering for her successes and crying through her struggles. This book reminded me of "Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine" with the loveable, yet broken main character and "What Alice Forgot" where the main character is struggling between two "realities".

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Lydia Bird's life is exactly how she likes it. She has a great relationship her family, she loves her house (and her fancy bed), she lives in the town she grew up in with her fiance, Freddie, who she has been in love with since they were teens. When Freddie dies unexpectedly, Lydia's life is thrown into complete turmoil. She can't seem to find the will to move forward without him, and in the interim she is prescribed sleeping pills so she can at least rest. However, Lydia learns that when she takes a sleeping pill she is taken to a reality in which Freddie never died, in which nothing had to change. As time moves forward and Lydia's waking life continues on, she must decide what path to take: the "dream life" she may have been expecting or the real life full of people who need her- namely herself.

Let me start by taking a big cathartic sigh and saying this: Wow. I felt for Lydia. I felt all the feelings: happy, worried, concerned, gut wrenchingly sad. Josie Silver did a terrific job in making even side characters complex people you wanted to know more about.

There were several points in this book when I applauded Lydia for her sheer ability to keep going when I honestly don't know if I could. I feel like her character was so rounded out and believable, it was like the story was based on real events. I found myself ugly crying several times because my heart just could not take the pain she was in and I was so proud of her on so many occasions.

Based on the synopsis I read before starting this book I expected a romance, but the book focuses more on the progression of Lydia's grief as well as the way time will inevitably change things. I really loved the point made that people can have more than one happy ending.

In sum, this book was fantastic. I will absolutely be reading more by Josie Silver and am very thankful to have had the opportunity to read this book. Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine for a copy of this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Wow. Its been a while since I read a book that made me really feel all of the emotions the characters were feeling. I was crushed when Freddie died, and that was on the first few pages! I laughed, I cried, and I wanted to hug them all.

The beginning chapters read a little slower for me. I kept asking myself - how could this end? Where is this going to go? I kept making assumptions about it being just a typical romance or story of grief, but it was surprising and wonderful and made me want to do something crazy and go to Croatia right this second.

I loved Josie Silver’s first book, but I think this one was even better! Thank you, NetGalley for letting me read this one.

(Also, spoiler - I just have to say it, I loved that she didn't beat herself up for being "with" someone new. I was not looking forward to that storyline if it happened.)

Lydia BIrd has a great, but quiet life. She has a job that she loves, lives in the same quiet village she grew up in and is about to marry the love of her life, Freddie. All that literally comes crashing down around her when there is a terrible accident. Having to live through her own personal hell, her mother gives her a pill to help her sleep. The pill ends up doing a lot more when it transports her to another dimension while she sleeps. A dimension where her life is just the way she wants it.
At first, Lydia believes she can live both the life she currently has and the life she wants, but soon it all becomes too much and she must make choice.

I think you have to really go through the grief process to have written something like The Two Lives of Lydia Bird. Lydia's feelings throughout the book are universal when it comes to losing someone you love.
I enjoyed the book but do feel like some of it could have been edited out (the Croatia trip, for example).

WOW. I enjoyed Silver’s first book, One Day in December, but The Two Lives of Lydia Bird has blown me away! I’m not always big on stories about loss and grief, but the premise of this one promised something different enough for me to test the waters, and it wasn’t long before I was diving all the way in!

The “asleep” days when Lydia visits Freddie and what could have been, and the “awake” days that were at first filled with nothing but grief and sorrow were equally addictive chapters. However, the real beauty of the story is how they come together, as Lydia learns to live more in the present than in the past, and all that that entails.

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird is about loss, and grief, but it is also about healing, and hope, and love. It is a beautiful story and it is one that I will continue to think about for a long time to come.

A big thanks to NetGalley, Josie Silver, and Penguin Random House, LLC for the ARC.

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird seemed like a rom-com, but this book is actually the story of a girl grieving the loss of her fiance. It talks about grief in a very real way, although the premise of this requires the reader to suspend disbelief a bit. Lydia Bird loses her fiance in a car accident, and she's struggling to move on with life. She realizes that if she takes a sleeping pill, she is transported into her old life, one where her fiance is still alive. This isn't sci-fi, although there are clearly two timelines.

This book is reminiscent of Taylor Jenkins Reid's "Maybe in Another Life" or "One True Loves" in that it deals with love, loss and moving on. Lydia is a very likeable character and her choices seem real. After reading other 2020 releases that deal with dreams and what they mean, this is a different take. Lydia doesn't just jump into a romance and her zig-zagged way through the grieving process is so real. Even her family's reaction to her was real - nothing was sugar-coated.

This book was very different than Silver's first book ("One Day in December"), but just as enjoyable. Recommended for those interested in women's fiction with a bit of romance and a lot of real emotion involving grief.

I was worried after reading the synopsis that this book would feel far-fetched and would take a certain amount of suspension of belief for me to get through. I had nothing to worry about! This book was heart-breaking and hopeful. It touched me and gave me perspective. I quite enjoyed it and look forward to more by Josie Silver.

This is a sad, haunting novel about grief after losing someone you love. It’s also a novel of hope and finding yourself afterwards. Lydia Bird is such a relatable character, a young woman who lost her fiancé to a car crash on the evening of her 28th birthday, and she suddenly has to face life without him. They had been together since they were 14 years old. With the aid of sleeping pills, she discovers a dream world where the accident never happened, and she uses that world to escape the realities of dealing with her grief.
This book explores the realities of grief, moving on, finding something new to live for, and finding out who you are apart from the one you lost. It’s beautifully written, and pulls at the heartstrings.

I read 'One Day in December,' last year and quite enjoyed it- so I knew Josie Silver could writer a beautiful love story.

This story starts perfectly, and then introduces major life changes after Lydia faces the tragic loss of the love of her life. I personally struggle with books where the partner dies, it is just not my idea of a fun read, but I thought the introduction of a 'second life,' would intrigue me.

The plot was intriguing, and I can appreciate how well written the dual storyline was. If you enjoy romance, and love lost, this will be the perfect read for you!

Heartbreaking and heart-soothing, Josie Silver tells a powerful story of love, loss, and strength. I was terrified to read this story because the premise is one of my deepest fears, but her writing and lovable characters kept me reading for more.

Let me just start off this review by saying - WOW. That’s the word I had in my mind the entire time I was reading Josie Silver’s book, because quite honestly? This book was fabulous. From the get go, it is chalk full of emotion so well written that you feel as though your heart has been sucker punched about eight hundred times. In the best way, of course.

Before I had picked up this book (by the way, thank you NetGalley!!) I had been eagerly anticipating this book because it was 1) a second book from the lovely Josie Silver, and as I had read her incomparable One Day in December, I just HAD to get my hands on this one some way or another; and 2) the premise was everything I wanted and more.

First off, the book deals with an incredible amount of grief, so be warned going in. Overarching, there is the theme of loss and grief, which I know can be triggering for some in this lovely community. There is also a loss of an unborn child, mental health issues, and most everything that comes with or can come with grief. I wanted to let potential readers know that if you think you need to, look up the content warnings for this book. It is beautifully handled, but I know the situations themselves can be triggering on their own.

Now - let’s get to the best part! THE BOOK! The story!!!! Simply pitched, this book is the story of Lydia Bird dealing with the loss of her fiancé, who died tragically in a car accident on Lydia’s 28th birthday. Her entire world comes crashing down around her, and two months later, she cannot get off the couch. She is not sleeping well, and is deeply depressed. To help, her doctor prescribes her a sleeping pill, which is the object of this story that sets off the magical part. When Lydia takes a sleeping pill for the first time, she wakes up in parallel universe where her Freddie never died.

Torn between her awake world and her sleeping one, Lydia is living two lives trying to find her way out of this grief. Slowly, she starts to realize that she cannot rely on these pills because she is physically drained by living awake in two worlds, and that one life (the real one) is dangerously close to becoming irrelevant for her. So, she decides to make both lives equal and slowly pull herself together. She goes back to work and begins to try.
This book is the detailing of how Lydia falls in love with herself and her life again, really. Or maybe that’s a bit large of a thing to say — she simply is trying to find herself again in the aftermath of her entire world falling apart. And for the entire book, you are on Lydia’s side. You’re rooting for her to regain her footing, yet also for her to feel loved again.

This book has been occasionally pitched to me as a romance, which I think is… not quite correct. Don’t go in expecting some grand romance that is the key to fixing Lydia’s broken soul — this is not that book. Granted, you do get the continuation of romance in a life already set with the Asleep world where Freddie is still alive and they’re planning their wedding, but… there is only a little romance in the Awake timeline, and within this book as a whole. And you know what? I am 100% okay with that, because if there was any more or any sooner, I would find it entirely false feeling. Grief on it’s own needs space to breathe, and finding your prince charming to sweep you off your feet right away is not going to fix that gaping hole in your soul where that other person’s had been. The way that any sort of the romantic is inserted into Lydia’s narrative is so carefully done. It only arrives when Lydia herself is ready to accept anything like love again into her heart. And for that, this book is simply wonderful.

The characters in this book are also absolutely wonderfully done. Each feels so real, so well crafted and human, that it feels as though you’re living the story with them as friends. You want to hold Lydia until she is put back together and commend her for how brave she is to get back on her feet in her own time. Jonah, Freddie’s best friend and another important piece of this book (he was in the car when Freddie died, and escaped with only a scrape, for example), is so…. again, you just want to wrap him into your arms and keep him there until he heals. Even the people who rotate in the background, like Lydia’s family, are crucial pieces to this puzzle and are so well done.

So, if this doesn’t convince you that Josie Silver is an absolute genius, I don’t know what will. I will say I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I did One Day In December, but that’s okay. I still loved this story of Lydia’s finding her feet again after such a tragic event uproots her universe. And you can be rest assured that anything else Josie Silver writes will immediately be read by me!

5 stars for the Two Lives of Lydia Bird! Josie Silver never disappoints.

When Lydia's fiance dies unexpectedly, she struggles to move forward and dreams the live she would've lived. The heartwrenching story is one where you will root for Lydia and those around her to thrive. Loved this story.

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird starts off with the death of her fiance, Freddie, and how her life unfolds from there. Lydia finds out that, with the use of a prescription sleeping pill, she's able to resume her life with Freddie when she falls asleep. However, her awake and asleep lives are not the same, and continued on different trajectories. Lydia is faced with the decision of trying to work through her grief in her waking life, or keep living her waking life for the time she gets to spend with Freddie while asleep.

This book was so wonderfully well written! I felt so deeply for Lydia and the pain she was going through. It made me think about what I would do in that situation, choose between the waking or sleeping lives. It's an extremely tough situation, and Ms. Silver navigated those waters expertly. The characters were all relatable, flawed, and lovable for their flaws. The dynamics of the characters and their relationships proceeded just as things do in real life. Time goes on, and each character learned this in their own way, on their own time.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review this book in advance of publishing for an honest and unbiased review.

This book was one I was beyond excited for considering how much I adored Josie Silver's last book, One day in december. So what did I think??
The good:
- unique story I wanted to know the ending for
- reading about her finding a new passion at work was interesting

The less good:
- I had a hard time connecting with the characters
- the main character felt boring, like she had nothing to her except grief and being in love with Freddy.
- the pacing was slow and the book didn't seem to be leading to anything, it just eventually got somewhere.
- once it got to that somewhere, it was sudden and too quick.

Summary:
This book wasn't bad, it was interesting enough to finish for the uniqueness of the storyline but overall didn't deliver to the expectations I had.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine for a copy of this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Freddie and Lydia have been together for over a decade and engaged to be married, but on the night of her 28th birthday, Freddie dies in a car accident when he was on his way to her birthday dinner with his best friend Jonah. While grieving his death, she finds a way to slip into a parallel universe where Freddie is still alive. She knows she needs to pick herself up and move on but she can't help but visit this other life where she gets her happily ever after with the love of her life. Will she find her happily ever after in real life too?

I loved Josie Silver's first book One Day in December so much so I was really excited for this one. It definitely did not disappoint. Josie Silver is an incredible writer and takes you on a journey to find love and happiness. This book is heartbreaking but also uplifting. It's a romance but to me it's more about a woman's journey through grief and self - discovery. The concept and writing style reminded me a lot of In Five Years by Rebecca Serle and Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid - two of my favorites in women's fiction.

This was a sweet and moving story about love and grief. Lydia Bird's fiancé, Freddie, dies in a car accident she is heartbroken and grief stricken. But she finds that when she takes sleeping pills, she can live an alternate version of her life where Freddie is alive. Lydia's grief and struggles are portrayed very realistically - she is a believable and likable. The supporting characters are strong and well developed as well. The ending might come off as slightly predictable but the path to get there is not. Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC.