… this is what dreams are made of! Apologies if that song is now stuck in your head.

Usually, I try to come up with a tidbit to include at the beginning of a post, before I go into the book and my thoughts on it. Today, I am struggling to come up with anything to say, so I’ll just jump right into it!

Book Read: The Two Lives of Lydia Bird
Author: Josie Silver
2020 Book Count: 28

It’s always been Lydia and Freddie, a pair ever since Freddie walked Lydia home at the age of fourteen. With their mutual friend Jonah, they all grew up together - Freddie and Lydia as the couple, Jonah as the third wheel/best friend. Until, on Lydia’s 28th birthday, Freddie is killed in a car accident (PS - this is not a spoiler because it’s in the book’s description).

Then, Lydia is given the chance to live two lives at once after being given something to aid her sleep. One world is the real world, where Freddy is gone and life is carrying on. The second is a world, where when she is sleeping, the events of the past few months have never happened and Freddie, and their future, is there.

Going back and forth between being “asleep” and “awake” has its consequences. Each world is, of course, significantly different, and leaving one impacts Lydia’s mood and feelings in the other. As she begins to change in the real world, Lydia is also changing in the “asleep” world, and the new Lydia is different from the old Lydia.

At some point, Lydia must decide if she can, and will, leave the dream world behind, because new things may be in store for her in the real world.

I was looking forward to this book, because I really enjoyed Silver’s One Day in December. I waited weeks to get the e-book copy from the library; however, I was disappointed in this book until about 150 pages in (which is about half way). It took me days to get to that point, and I felt like it would never come. Up to that point, the book moved slowly, and I didn’t feel like picking it up again to continue reading. Then, BAM! The turning point.

Once I hit that point, there was no turning back, and I read the second half of the book in two days. It helped that I needed to read the second half quickly, as my library loan was about to expire and there’s another another wait list. Luckily, I didn’t need to put the book on hold again.

Despite the increased pace in the second half, I can’t help but feel disappointed by The Two Lives of Lydia Bird. I can accept having to push through 50 pages or so, but 150? No thanks. I’m not one to give up on a book - I could actually tell you the last book I started and didn’t finish on purpose (it was The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling years ago; I never made it past the first few chapters and have yet to pick it back up).

Everything seemed to start coming together in the second half of the book. Lydia was learning to navigate this new normal and how she had changed because of it. I looked forward to her and Jonah’s Skype calls and Lydia’s interactions with her niece. I liked the second half because there was more of the real world, and less of the “asleep” world. I hoped for a nice ending. But, although the second half of the book was an improvement, I can’t ignore the bittersweet taste in my mouth.

My hope is that whenever Silver writes a new book, I have a One Day in December feeling, and not a The Two Lives of Lydia Bird feeling.

Next Read: TBD.