The Two Lives of Lydia Bird follows Lydia, a woman who seemingly has everything: a great job, a great family, and a gorgeous fiancé. That is, until her fiancé Freddie dies in a car crash and suddenly, everything Lydia had hoped and dreamed for the future is gone. Faced with the inability to sleep without crying, Lydia gets recommended some sleeping pills and the unimaginable happens: when Lydia takes the pills, she wanders off into a world in which Freddie is still alive and well, and the both of them are happier than ever. Suddenly, Lydia is caught between two worlds: the one where she can still have everything she ever wanted and the real one where everyone is grieving with her. One thing is for sure, though: at some point, Lydia will have to decide: does she want to move on or not?
With a premise like this, The Two Lives of Lydia Bird certainly will catch a lot of attention. It sounds like a story that will resonate with people who have loved and lost, who want to reclaim the past that made them happy and forget the struggles that seem insurmountable. Unfortunately, the story didn’t resonate with me like that personally. For some reason, I kept waiting for something more to happen. A conflict, some plot twist, anything that would propel the story forward. Instead, we keep watching Lydia repetitively live her life in the “awake” and the “asleep” world.
The idea in itself is great; we get to see Lydia live out what could have been her and Freddie’s epic love story if it wasn’t cut short when he died. But after the fifth or sixth time she visits this dreamland that is never quite explained and has no rules to it, the book falls into a repetitive two-step: Lydia wants to be asleep so she can be with Freddie, and the awake world is keeping her from it. The story had a lot of potential for exploration of morality and the afterlife in general but it never really addressed the issue of why Lydia could “live on” while she was sleeping or the moral dilemma she is facing by taking these sleeping pills even when she doesn’t need them anymore just so she can see Freddie. In general, every issue that could have led to a conflict or a bit of food for thought was kicked under the rug. Even the ‘plot twist’ that you can probably see a mile coming was just – resolved? There seemed to be no tension, no anticipation, just a quick inner monologue and everything was sorted.
The writing style could also use some work. There was a lot of telling rather than showing and the dialogue felt sometimes very unnatural to the point of ridiculous. Not to mention the few instances of fake feminism when it came to clothing and drinking. Additionally, there was a lot of explanatory writing. Good when it helps you understand the characters better, bad when said character cannot even drink a glass of orange juice without that action being followed by the narrator delving deeper.
All in all, this was a quick read and for fans of afterlife tales and fluffy slowburns definitely worth looking into!
The Two Lives of Lydia Bird is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
In this next captivating love story from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of One Day in December, a young woman is reunited with her late fiancé in a parallel life. But is this happy ending the one she really wants?
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 her twenty-eighth birthday, Freddie died in a car accident.
So now it’s just Lydia, and all she wants to do is 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 across the doorway of 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.
Written with Josie Silver’s trademark warmth and wit, The 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.
