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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
I did t love this one like o did the December book. I loved that one.
The concept is good, but I never FELL for these characters like I did before, I kinda got bored and spaced out for sections….and I didn’t really feel like I was kissing much.
Also….it’s an easy read and a lovely story about living the life that’s in front of you, no matter what happens in your life.
The concept is good, but I never FELL for these characters like I did before, I kinda got bored and spaced out for sections….and I didn’t really feel like I was kissing much.
Also….it’s an easy read and a lovely story about living the life that’s in front of you, no matter what happens in your life.
If you liked '[b:One Day in December|38255337|One Day in December|Josie Silver|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1573862622l/38255337._SX50_.jpg|56132017]', you'll probably enjoy this enough to finish it. Josie Silver is on track to write some really relatable books for women to plow through on holiday. That being said, a few things nagged at me while reading the book:
- While I understand that weaving between the two worlds was a way for Lydia to work through her grief, I felt the abrupt change in her relationship post-marriage to Freddie felt a little forced.
- The line about how Lydia's grief was the price for Elle's happiness was unnecessary; it felt a bit dark for someone who was spending their sleeping hours living in an alternate reality.
- I wish Lydia had been less... beige. To be honest, she could only have been more beige if she drank rosé and wore UGG boots with leggings. The SATC mentions felt a bit anachronistic (the series has aged rather poorly and I cannot imagine a woman under the age of 40 having any kind of nostalgia for it), and the whole Breakfast at Tiffany's and tickets to Wicked felt very cliché like, "What would a tourist in NYC do?" The book takes place in 2018-2019, I can't imagine that a young couple with Instagram accounts and access to travel YTers couldn't find anything more interesting to do than go to Times Square and see Wicked.
- The ending was visible MILES away. I was a bit disappointed that the subplot with the Viking didn't lead to anywhere satisfying. As soon as he showed up, it was very obviously a red herring. Also, Birmingham and London are what, hour and a half, two hours by train? It would have been nice if the two had worked through their separate grief together and then come to a natural conclusion.
- Elle was a bit of an asshole about Lydia's trip to Croatia. That whole bit about her being there for Lydia but Lydia "fucked off to Croatia", as if their relationship is transactional. That's a really horrible way for sisters to behave towards each other.
If you're going to have any kind of magical realism, then you need to go whole hog. I get it, I didn't pick this up for a trip to Murakamiville, but the whole alternate reality twist felt like it was just there to make the book interesting rather than serve as real impetus for Lydia working through her grief. In the end, she tosses the sleeping pills like, "Freddie turned out to be an asshole workaholic, I'm quite pleased with my decision." Then we're thrown a few lines about her therapist chalking up the experience to Lydia's subconscious weaving an alternate reality to get through the grief; the entire experience is waved off by a short paragraph describing Lydia's visits to a therapist.
If you're going to write about grief, especially the loss of a partner, this fell a little flat in the end. This is serious, heavy stuff and while Lydia definitely experiences some massive self-inflicted upheaval, I don't feel like we as the readers went along with her working through her grief. It was all tidied up quite quickly like, "Well that's enough of that, THE END". How Lydia arrived to her "ending" didn't feel natural.
I don't know, I finished '[b:One Day in December|38255337|One Day in December|Josie Silver|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1573862622l/38255337._SX50_.jpg|56132017]' thinking, "This will make a great film", but with this I just felt like it could have been better. It's not a bad book by any means, you could do worse with your time, but I felt like it just didn't go deep enough to reach me as a reader.
- While I understand that weaving between the two worlds was a way for Lydia to work through her grief, I felt the abrupt change in her relationship post-marriage to Freddie felt a little forced.
- The line about how Lydia's grief was the price for Elle's happiness was unnecessary; it felt a bit dark for someone who was spending their sleeping hours living in an alternate reality.
- I wish Lydia had been less... beige. To be honest, she could only have been more beige if she drank rosé and wore UGG boots with leggings. The SATC mentions felt a bit anachronistic (the series has aged rather poorly and I cannot imagine a woman under the age of 40 having any kind of nostalgia for it), and the whole Breakfast at Tiffany's and tickets to Wicked felt very cliché like, "What would a tourist in NYC do?" The book takes place in 2018-2019, I can't imagine that a young couple with Instagram accounts and access to travel YTers couldn't find anything more interesting to do than go to Times Square and see Wicked.
- The ending was visible MILES away. I was a bit disappointed that the subplot with the Viking didn't lead to anywhere satisfying. As soon as he showed up, it was very obviously a red herring. Also, Birmingham and London are what, hour and a half, two hours by train? It would have been nice if the two had worked through their separate grief together and then come to a natural conclusion.
- Elle was a bit of an asshole about Lydia's trip to Croatia. That whole bit about her being there for Lydia but Lydia "fucked off to Croatia", as if their relationship is transactional. That's a really horrible way for sisters to behave towards each other.
If you're going to have any kind of magical realism, then you need to go whole hog. I get it, I didn't pick this up for a trip to Murakamiville, but the whole alternate reality twist felt like it was just there to make the book interesting rather than serve as real impetus for Lydia working through her grief. In the end, she tosses the sleeping pills like, "Freddie turned out to be an asshole workaholic, I'm quite pleased with my decision." Then we're thrown a few lines about her therapist chalking up the experience to Lydia's subconscious weaving an alternate reality to get through the grief; the entire experience is waved off by a short paragraph describing Lydia's visits to a therapist.
If you're going to write about grief, especially the loss of a partner, this fell a little flat in the end. This is serious, heavy stuff and while Lydia definitely experiences some massive self-inflicted upheaval, I don't feel like we as the readers went along with her working through her grief. It was all tidied up quite quickly like, "Well that's enough of that, THE END". How Lydia arrived to her "ending" didn't feel natural.
I don't know, I finished '[b:One Day in December|38255337|One Day in December|Josie Silver|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1573862622l/38255337._SX50_.jpg|56132017]' thinking, "This will make a great film", but with this I just felt like it could have been better. It's not a bad book by any means, you could do worse with your time, but I felt like it just didn't go deep enough to reach me as a reader.
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Second time reading Josie Silver this year and I love her so much! I wish she had more than two books out because I just want to continue to read more from her.
The Two Lives of Lydia Bird is about a young woman named Lydia who loses her fiancé Freddie in a car accident on her birthday. Several months later, due to not sleeping well, she gets sleeping pills from her doctor and when she takes one, she gets transported to another life where Freddie didn’t die. After she realizes that when she goes to sleep she can see Freddie, she continues to take the pills, living between her real life where she lives in pain knowing the love of her life is gone and, in her dreams, where he isn’t.
Lydia’s journey through grief was so well written – I just loved everything about this story.
Would I Reread? Yes!
The Two Lives of Lydia Bird is about a young woman named Lydia who loses her fiancé Freddie in a car accident on her birthday. Several months later, due to not sleeping well, she gets sleeping pills from her doctor and when she takes one, she gets transported to another life where Freddie didn’t die. After she realizes that when she goes to sleep she can see Freddie, she continues to take the pills, living between her real life where she lives in pain knowing the love of her life is gone and, in her dreams, where he isn’t.
Lydia’s journey through grief was so well written – I just loved everything about this story.
Would I Reread? Yes!
Like sliding doors, but bad. I got nothing else really to say except I have no intention of reading Silver's books in the future. I tried this one and her previous book and I can say that her writing style/plots are not going to suit me at all so I am going to just move on. Also, I am tired of people saying this is a great romance. It really is not. It doesn't even end on a HEA, but a HFN and it's a really messed up HFN if you can even call it that.
"The Two Lives of Lydia Bird" follows Lydia after she deals with the loss of her fiancee Freddie. Lydia is going through the motions until she gets some pills to help her sleep. Now she awakes in a world where Freddie is still alive and then when she sleeps and awakens again she is in a world where he has died. I really wish that I could say this book moved me, but honestly there's not a lot there. We just deal with Lydia and her grieving and sometimes there's a spark there of a character, and then it just goes away again.
Lydia is not developed beyond she lost her fiancee. I have to say that Silver maybe could have turned things around for not going in the direction I knew she was as soon as the book telegraphed it fairly on. It just made the the whole book feel endless and pointless.
The other characters like Jonah, not developed, her coworkers, not developed, her sister and mother, not developed, heck Freddie was probably the best developed, and we don't really get a sense of him except in the chapters when Lydia is awake with him.
The writing isn't that great. I think the whole book just becomes beyond boring after you get past the premise which is Lydia is taking pills to be back with her dead fiancee. I think if Silver had worked in some magical realism or something to the book, maybe it would have worked better. If anything, I just kept thinking well obviously this isn't really happening and these are just dreams she's having. The book just becomes very repetitive and it doesn't help with the chapter headings calling everything "Awake". Frankly she should have called it Awake with Freddie and Awake Without or something. It was hard figuring what reality she was in after a while.
It does not help that the flow is also poor. I think the biggest issue is that Lydia is selfish as the day as long (the book shows it again and again) and I didn't get a big love story between her and her fiancee. We keep getting told via her that it was, but then we see her being stuck and seemingly wanting her fiancee's best friend to be stuck right along with her. The book is not thrilling and it's not a freaking romance. I really wish that people would stop mislabeling books like that and when you read it, you go, yeah...this isn't a romance unless you stretch really far and look at it with one eye open.
The setting of the book is of course the UK, but with a stop in Crotia. I don't know what else to say. The whole book read as so flat.
The ending.Nope.
"The Two Lives of Lydia Bird" follows Lydia after she deals with the loss of her fiancee Freddie. Lydia is going through the motions until she gets some pills to help her sleep. Now she awakes in a world where Freddie is still alive and then when she sleeps and awakens again she is in a world where he has died. I really wish that I could say this book moved me, but honestly there's not a lot there. We just deal with Lydia and her grieving and sometimes there's a spark there of a character, and then it just goes away again.
Lydia is not developed beyond she lost her fiancee. I have to say that Silver maybe could have turned things around for not going in the direction I knew she was as soon as the book telegraphed it fairly on. It just made the the whole book feel endless and pointless.
The other characters like Jonah, not developed, her coworkers, not developed, her sister and mother, not developed, heck Freddie was probably the best developed, and we don't really get a sense of him except in the chapters when Lydia is awake with him.
The writing isn't that great. I think the whole book just becomes beyond boring after you get past the premise which is Lydia is taking pills to be back with her dead fiancee. I think if Silver had worked in some magical realism or something to the book, maybe it would have worked better. If anything, I just kept thinking well obviously this isn't really happening and these are just dreams she's having. The book just becomes very repetitive and it doesn't help with the chapter headings calling everything "Awake". Frankly she should have called it Awake with Freddie and Awake Without or something. It was hard figuring what reality she was in after a while.
It does not help that the flow is also poor. I think the biggest issue is that Lydia is selfish as the day as long (the book shows it again and again) and I didn't get a big love story between her and her fiancee. We keep getting told via her that it was, but then we see her being stuck and seemingly wanting her fiancee's best friend to be stuck right along with her. The book is not thrilling and it's not a freaking romance. I really wish that people would stop mislabeling books like that and when you read it, you go, yeah...this isn't a romance unless you stretch really far and look at it with one eye open.
The setting of the book is of course the UK, but with a stop in Crotia. I don't know what else to say. The whole book read as so flat.
The ending.
Spoiler
I think what kills me the most is that Silver shows the whole book how not in love Lydia is with Jonah. And honestly I think the book would have have worked better if Jonah did just go off to LA (that whole storyline was so dumb) and stayed there and moved on. And that Lydia moved on with Kris. Instead this two are merely together because they both loved Freddie the most. I didn't see a deep passionate sort of love between them and then Silver tries to stitch things up in the end.
It was a light read - reminded me a lot of PS I Love You... a perfect weekend read, great to take on vacation.
3.5. Enjoyed but didn’t love. Not sure if the “loses significant other” trope within the romance genre is my thing.