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A review by rue25
The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver
3.0
Rating 2 1/2 stars
I'm really disappointed that I didn't love this book because I really wanted to love it. I thought the premise was super enticing and it was a big reason I picked it up. It's a story about a girl who gets to live two lives simultaneously, one life where she's slowly grieving the loss of late fiance and another life where he never died at all. I loved the idea of a pseudo-fantasy magical realism approach to death and loss but I just don't feel like it was executed well. I just don't think the author did enough with the premise and it just constantly left me wanting more.
I also was expecting the romance element of the book to be much stronger than it ended up being. There was some romance and it was really sweet but I was lead to believe by the synopsis and the cover that it would play a very large part in the plot but the book really focuses on Lydia's solitary journey of healing and everything else was very secondary.
The book should've definitely been a lot shorter it was just way waaaaay too long. It was so meandering at times and there were multiple spots especially in the middle and near the end that I was just skimming pages because nothing of importance was happening for such long stretches of time. There was no need for a story like this to be as long as it was.
I did enjoy the writing style and I did enjoy the transformative arc that Lydia went through. I am a sucker for arcs like that where the character finds themselves at the end and grows stronger after everything they've been through. But outside of those two aspects this story left me very very underwhelmed.
I'm really disappointed that I didn't love this book because I really wanted to love it. I thought the premise was super enticing and it was a big reason I picked it up. It's a story about a girl who gets to live two lives simultaneously, one life where she's slowly grieving the loss of late fiance and another life where he never died at all. I loved the idea of a pseudo-fantasy magical realism approach to death and loss but I just don't feel like it was executed well. I just don't think the author did enough with the premise and it just constantly left me wanting more.
I also was expecting the romance element of the book to be much stronger than it ended up being. There was some romance and it was really sweet but I was lead to believe by the synopsis and the cover that it would play a very large part in the plot but the book really focuses on Lydia's solitary journey of healing and everything else was very secondary.
The book should've definitely been a lot shorter it was just way waaaaay too long. It was so meandering at times and there were multiple spots especially in the middle and near the end that I was just skimming pages because nothing of importance was happening for such long stretches of time. There was no need for a story like this to be as long as it was.
I did enjoy the writing style and I did enjoy the transformative arc that Lydia went through. I am a sucker for arcs like that where the character finds themselves at the end and grows stronger after everything they've been through. But outside of those two aspects this story left me very very underwhelmed.