The Two Lives of Lydia Bird A Novel

A deep look into what grief can do to someone who loses someone they truly loved. Great read.

Lydia really just needed therapy.

i cried a lot in the very beginning of this book. the emotions felt by the main character were written so well, it made me literally sob. it really is all the minuscule details that someone deals with / feels during a period of grieving that made it all that much more painful to read. needless to say, despite all of my tears shed, i really did enjoy this book quite a lot. and the ending... i saw it coming and i loved every moment of it.

A heartfelt story of love and loss and how to love again. It was an emotional rollercoaster. Audiobook: There were many moments I thought the book could’ve ended, but I was fine once I got to the actual ending, I just wish some of that fluff in the last hour was trimmed up.

3.5 stars I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would, and never guessed that the story would end where it did. I really enjoyed the story overall, the description of grief was spot.on and the secondary characters were delightful. I am not a huge fan of the ending though and would have preferred if Lydia had chosen the other love interest, but overall I had a great time, it was not JUSt a romance and therefore was more fulfilling. The audiobook was good, I really enjoyed listening to it

This was another book I went into it thinking it was a romance and there were definitely romantic aspects but it was more about dealing with grief and the loss of your partner. It was a little sad but honestly a very good read.

8th book of my Covid-19 isolation. This book was popping up all over my IG feed, so I knew I just had to pick it up. I'd heard of Josie Silver but had yet to read any of her work. Although I liked the synopsis, I was a bit sceptical about the whole thing. This is a lovely book about dealing with grief and accepting life's second chances. Funny (and personal) thing about this book: I've been finding "And I Love Her" by The Beatles in many random places (phone calls, IG lives) and a scene on this book features this exact song in a pretty cute way. Now, where can I find a Jonah Jones?

DNF. As much as I love Josie Silver, this one was not for me.

** spoiler alert ** Meh. I thought the ending could’ve been better. Felt like it came out of nowhere. The story itself was good I guess. Definitely an interesting take on grief however, the title literally says the two worlds... and I just felt like in the end I got left feeling annoyed rather than satisfied. She gain he independence, great, but what next? There was no wrap the story in a bow and put it back on the shelf. Even if it wasn’t a happy ending, I would’ve preferred that over the weak ending I did get.

This is the gut wretchin story of a woman that loses the love of her life. She finds a way to keep a second alternative life where her fiancé is still alive, but at what cost? And which one will she choose? Who else will she loose in the process? Lydia Bird's journey through grief is so well written, there's not a single boring page in this book, although Lydia's emotions are well described during the book in a fluid writing, but not in way to make you sobb. The evolution of the characters is so well developed, especially Lydia's and her best friend Jonah. It's really wonderful to see their relationship evolution, all the ups and downs, leading to a heart warming ending. I highly recommend this book! 👍

3.5 Enjoyed this but felt it was a tad long, and the last bit didn’t have me as engrossed as the first half. I honestly could not tell why Lydia and Freddie were together in the first place. Seemed like they didn’t have anything in common and that their relationship was mostly sexual (although this was pretty PG-13). There’s a playlist at the end of the book but couldn’t find one on Spotify, so I created one. Kind of surprised there isn’t a Beatles song on it. Also a couple of recipes after the playlist which is pretty neat.

This book broke me, over and over again. I felt Lydia’s hurt the entire time and then I felt Lydia’s freedom with the same intensity in the end. Very well done.

This is in the running for my favorite book of the year. The characters were all thoroughly enjoyable. At times, it was funny, sad, or thoughtful. My only complaint is that it ended. I want to see what happens to these characters after the final page. The ending was excellent and left everything wrapped up, but I am invested in them.

DNF. As much as I love Josie Silver, this one was not for me.

Okay first of all this book needed a huge addiction trigger warning!!!! The last 50 pages took me 5 days to get through, it was sooooo boring :/// the overall message of finding yourself after something terrible happens is amazing but the writing was really boring and didn’t help the story flow very well

So the book starts by breaking your heart. Then I liked where it was going in the sense that it was very honest about what love sometimes looks like and how we can idolize it after someone leaves. However, the ending was incredibly disappointing. Ruined the main character a tad bit for me.

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird is a heartbreakingly beautiful story of love, loss, and self-discovery. This book made me cry in the first few pages. And as awful as it felt, I loved it! It was a melancholy journey as Lydia navigated her way through life following a tragedy. The only thing that could have made this book better *for me* is if the ending wasn’t as rushed. I spent 300+ pages going through the pain and growth with Lydia. I would have loved to share in her final scenes of self-acceptance and choosing happiness a little longer. However, I’ve noticed that this is typical for Josie Silver books, so I’m not too upset about it! Solid 4 stars!

It was alright, I think this type of story just isn’t for me because there’s not a whole lot of action, it’s more of the main character working through her grief which is great but it was not the most captivating book I have read.

I'm so stuck on what I think about this book. The writing is nice and the story itself is nice and needs to be told exactly the way it was. I disagree with some people that have said the book drags out; while maybe some passages weren't the most useful, everything that Lydia did with her time, and the alternate universe experiences with Freddie were more than necessary to be written. Unfortunately, I didn't get as into the book or as attached to the characters (aside from Jonah Jones) as I would've liked to be in such an emotional read. Now, SPOILER ALERT. I understand that this is actually a novel about maneuvering grief and having the ability to have a "second life" or, as accurately explained in the book “find a way to carry on living without feeling as if everything that comes afterwards is second best”; that being said I really would've needed more interactions between Lydia and Jonah either before or after the conclusion, simply to nail the chemistry in the head. Perhaps that's just me.

This book was very sad and cute at the same time. I definitely spent 50% of my reading time crying, but that's what you get for reading in the middle of the night while PMSing. I think the romance was fitting for being a book about grief, and the story was very sweet. There were some parts of the 'asleep' life that I kind of skimmed because I knew it wasn't REAL, but the jumps between asleep and awake were nice. Also, this author has written two books about (view spoiler)[romance between someone and their best friends fiance (hide spoiler)], which I feel like is a strange trope that I hope isn't something she has personally experienced.

Could have cut out about 100 pages.

Not to sound too basic, but I love a love story that is as much about loving someone else as it is about loving yourself. The Two Lives of Lydia Bird had me hooked from the premise. Lydia loses her fiance Freddie, and a magic sleeping pill gives her the ability to experience the life with him that she would have had and still live her current life. On the surface, it would be the ultimate sliding door setup, but I loved that the book did not sidestep that you can't run from your own grief (magic sleeping aid or not). It took me awhile to warm up to this book because the premise is so heart-heavy, but I really enjoyed the back half and can't wait to read the author's next book. This is sad, romantic, and it felt like a Sunday Afternoon movie. What a hopeful book.

I feel a tide swell inside me, this sense of myself as a whole, loved person, as owner of my own heart, a whisper and then a roar. Me. Me. Me. If I was somewhere other than a shrine, I’d shout out at the top of my lungs: I’m Lydia Bird and I’m still here. Lydia Bird has trouble sleeping after her fiancé dies unexpectedly. But she soon realizes that, with the help of some small pink sleeping pills, she can travel to a world, a reality where Freddie is still alive. Maybe it's my fault for reading this after Good Girl, Bad Blood, a fast, exciting, mysterious read. But I was so. flipping. bored. I was ready to be destroyed by this book. I nearly cried 5 pages in. I wanted my heart to wrench and swell and pour, and yet, for majority of this book, I could barely keep my eyes open. I also blame the blurb writers. This is hardly an emotional romance. There is a time and a place to an emotional story of grief and growth and self-discovery, and it was not now, for me. Sure, Lydia's journey is slow and yearning and mournful, as grief usually is. I was happy that she was able to find herself again after that worst moment in her life. I was glad she was able to love again (clichéd as it was). But this was not a love story. And I really, really wanted a love story. This book dragged. Why are we reading chapters of Lydia going to her other-reality when Freddie isn't even there? Isn't the whole point of her dream world to be with the man who no longer exists in her waking world? It just slowed down the story. And I was relieved when it seemed like Lydia was moving on with someone other than her dead fiancés best friend, but that of course was a red herring. I swear, if I pass and my fixture partner decides to kick it with my best friend, and they're all "oh, she would want us to have found each other" no the fuck i wouldn't. my boo and my bff? no flipping way. I will haunt those fuckers for the rest of my days. That sounds a bit harsh. Here I am, swearing in a review about a poignant, heartbreaking novel about loss and love moving on and finding yourself. This book is probably a lot of people's cups of tea. But it's not mine.

Lydia Bird's life is going well. Not only does she have a job she loves, she's engaged to the love of her life, high school sweetheart Freddie Hunter. Everything changes on the night of her twenty-eighth birthday when a detour to pick up a friend results in a devastating and fatal car accident. When she begins taking prescription sleeping pills to give her some relief, she's overwhelmed to realize that in her dreams, Freddie is still alive and their lives are continuing on as normal. But as the months progress, Lydia is torn between the two worlds and the different person she's becoming--and realizes that maybe her perfect love wasn't so perfect after all. This novel took a while to get started, but was easy to read and, once it found its footing, was interesting. The characters felt one-dimensional and were relatively unlikable, especially Lydia. While Silver was able to paint a portrait of a grieving woman, that's all there was. Lydia is flat. At times, her grief is palpable and saddening, but she doesn't have any redeeming qualities, she's unrelatable (more than just the dead fiance; she's just overall bland), and her lack of any real development makes her successes seem shoehorned in and her defeats seem like an excuse to add a few more pages. The ending of this novel was infuriatingly cliched and a poor excuse to tick off all the qualifying boxes for a rom-com. If the ending was changed, the book would be more enjoyable. If you can guess the ending of the book from the first page, it voids the middle parts--no matter how mildly interesting.