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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
Ugh. Too much Egyptian history and jargon. Did not like the jumping timeline. Did not like Dawn the main character at all. I thought the marriage was ridiculous: her complaints and his ‘understanding’ and acceptance. 16 hrs I won’t get back.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
4.5 stars
As an Egyptologist, Dawn knows about life and death. Having spent her academic experience studying the Book of Two Ways, an ancient sort of guidebook to the afterlife, her passion led her to believe she’d spend her career analyzing what people long dead had left behind. But life never happens how we anticipate and fifteen years after she leaves that dream behind, she realizes that she has to KNOW what she’d missed out on. Told in a unique narrative style that fit the plot really well for me, this is a story of the choices we make and the circumstances beyond our control that we have to deal with. It is about the messiness of life and the inevitability of death. It is about the people we love, the people we loose and the ones we get to find again.
I really liked this story. I loved learning about the life of an Egyptologist and the whole ancient Egyptian vibe really worked for me although I eventually stopped trying to really keep track of details and timelines and just enjoyed the history lesson at face value. I appreciated how well we delved into how complicated and beautiful and heartbreaking a marriage can be. It gave me a lot of think about with regards to the idea of the roads we didn’t travel and how that can affect the way we see ourselves and our lives as they really are. It gets 4.5 stars instead of 5 because Dawn drove me nuts sometimes with her choices and it made it harder for me to be sympathetic with her. But by the end, her relationship with her daughter, the thoughts it made me have about death itself and the strong writing made me so glad I got this book in my first Once Upon A Bookclub box.
As an Egyptologist, Dawn knows about life and death. Having spent her academic experience studying the Book of Two Ways, an ancient sort of guidebook to the afterlife, her passion led her to believe she’d spend her career analyzing what people long dead had left behind. But life never happens how we anticipate and fifteen years after she leaves that dream behind, she realizes that she has to KNOW what she’d missed out on. Told in a unique narrative style that fit the plot really well for me, this is a story of the choices we make and the circumstances beyond our control that we have to deal with. It is about the messiness of life and the inevitability of death. It is about the people we love, the people we loose and the ones we get to find again.
I really liked this story. I loved learning about the life of an Egyptologist and the whole ancient Egyptian vibe really worked for me although I eventually stopped trying to really keep track of details and timelines and just enjoyed the history lesson at face value. I appreciated how well we delved into how complicated and beautiful and heartbreaking a marriage can be. It gave me a lot of think about with regards to the idea of the roads we didn’t travel and how that can affect the way we see ourselves and our lives as they really are. It gets 4.5 stars instead of 5 because Dawn drove me nuts sometimes with her choices and it made it harder for me to be sympathetic with her. But by the end, her relationship with her daughter, the thoughts it made me have about death itself and the strong writing made me so glad I got this book in my first Once Upon A Bookclub box.
I always love books that make me smarter and Jodi Picoult's books always teach me something new! I'm always incredibly impressed with the amount of immersive research she puts into each of her novels. The Book of Two Ways is no exception!
The Book of Two Ways is a story about the path in life not taken - and how things would have turned out if we had the chance to take that path.
The main character, Dawn, is a former student of archeology as well as a current Death Doula. She has spent her adulthood studying death, whether it was through ancient Egyptian digs or guiding clients in hospice through the end of life. When her world is turned upside down, Dawn has the opportunity to discover what life would look like if she chooses her current life with her husband and teenage daughter or chose to return to Egypt and the man and life she left behind.
This book made me think a lot about life and death, and whether given the opportunity to choose the path not taken, would I want to return to see how it all would have turned out.
I highly recommend picking this book up. Jodi Picoult does it again!
Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine books for the ARC of this book.
The Book of Two Ways is a story about the path in life not taken - and how things would have turned out if we had the chance to take that path.
The main character, Dawn, is a former student of archeology as well as a current Death Doula. She has spent her adulthood studying death, whether it was through ancient Egyptian digs or guiding clients in hospice through the end of life. When her world is turned upside down, Dawn has the opportunity to discover what life would look like if she chooses her current life with her husband and teenage daughter or chose to return to Egypt and the man and life she left behind.
This book made me think a lot about life and death, and whether given the opportunity to choose the path not taken, would I want to return to see how it all would have turned out.
I highly recommend picking this book up. Jodi Picoult does it again!
Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine books for the ARC of this book.
(Popsugar Challenge 2021: A book set in multiple countries)
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
While I enjoyed the book, especially as the story developed, I found the details in Egypt to be too much for me. I appreciate that Picoult always does her research and does an excellent job of giving the reader accurate insight to Egyptian art history. I just don’t personally find that information stimulating and therefore while reading parts of the book, I merely was reading to get back to “Boston”.
Dawn’s life changes in an instant when her plane crashes and she’s one of the few survivors.
When Dawn’s life flashes before her eyes, she sees her husband and daughter. But she also sees her first love, Wyatt, somewhere in Egypt at an ancient burial site.
When the airline offers transportation to Dawn wherever she wants to go, she reconciles her past and her present, and is faced with an astronomical decision. Will she return to a life well-lived? Or will she take on a new path?
Thoughts:
This book was great! I listened to the audio, and it was really good. I did get a little lost during some of the transitions, just because there weren’t clear markers, but it was pretty easy to pick up based on where we were at with the story. I am just a stickler for chapter markers because I tend to get a little lost, so this is just a pet peeve I have developed. It didn’t end up deterring me too much from the book though.
I am fascinated with death doulas and have read, and really enjoyed, several books with characters who were them and this book was no different. Their jobs are so important.
This book really made me stop and think about how life can take so many different directions based on choices we’ve made. It had me stopping to think about several of my choices more than once throughout the pages. It was quite the reflective read that’s for sure.
While this book was heavy in Egyptian history and mythology, it wasn’t overwhelming, and I felt that it was woven into the plot nicely. I enjoyed getting to know more about it over the course of the audio.
I did enjoy Dawn as a character, but I did feel that some of the growth she experienced was at the expense of her daughter, and I didn’t like that aspect of it. Teenagers have a pretty rough go of life as is, so for Dawn to do what she did was quite a lot. I do understand, I just don’t necessarily like it. However, I do think that the ending wrapped things up nicely and left everything in a nice spot.
When Dawn’s life flashes before her eyes, she sees her husband and daughter. But she also sees her first love, Wyatt, somewhere in Egypt at an ancient burial site.
When the airline offers transportation to Dawn wherever she wants to go, she reconciles her past and her present, and is faced with an astronomical decision. Will she return to a life well-lived? Or will she take on a new path?
Thoughts:
This book was great! I listened to the audio, and it was really good. I did get a little lost during some of the transitions, just because there weren’t clear markers, but it was pretty easy to pick up based on where we were at with the story. I am just a stickler for chapter markers because I tend to get a little lost, so this is just a pet peeve I have developed. It didn’t end up deterring me too much from the book though.
I am fascinated with death doulas and have read, and really enjoyed, several books with characters who were them and this book was no different. Their jobs are so important.
This book really made me stop and think about how life can take so many different directions based on choices we’ve made. It had me stopping to think about several of my choices more than once throughout the pages. It was quite the reflective read that’s for sure.
While this book was heavy in Egyptian history and mythology, it wasn’t overwhelming, and I felt that it was woven into the plot nicely. I enjoyed getting to know more about it over the course of the audio.
I did enjoy Dawn as a character, but I did feel that some of the growth she experienced was at the expense of her daughter, and I didn’t like that aspect of it. Teenagers have a pretty rough go of life as is, so for Dawn to do what she did was quite a lot. I do understand, I just don’t necessarily like it. However, I do think that the ending wrapped things up nicely and left everything in a nice spot.