The Two Lives of Lydia Bird Review

by Josie Silver

Rating: 4/5

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.

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Content Warning: death of a loved one, grief, mental health, depression, drug addiction

After reading this, I’ve unlocked a new fear if my partner dies before me. I would be devastated if I had to go through what our dear Lydia had to go through. My heart broke for her.

We meet Lydia talking about the importance of pivotal moments in our lives and how we often don’t realize their importance until after it’s passed. Lydia loses her fiance in a car accident while he was driving to her birthday with his best friend. He dies while the best friend walks away with barely a scratch. We watch as Lydia falls into a deep depression. Her friends and family trying to help her during her grief. But in an attempt to help, her mother steals away the last remnants of her fiance, washing the sheets of their bed so now it no longer smells of him. Now Lydia can’t sleep. Until her mother begs the doctor to prescribe her something strong enough to help her sleep. Eventually Lydia agrees to try them and discovers it’s given her an opportunity to be with her fiance again through lucid dreams. These vivid dreams have given Lydia an alternative reality she can slip into with just a little help by these pills.

I’m actually really glad I didn’t pick this up until now. I remember when I first got this book. I had never been in a truly serious relationship before. So I don’t think I would have understood the gravity of washing the sheets back then. I mentioned this book and that particular point to my mom actually, and I barely had to finish the sentence about the sheets before she audibly gasped. She then shared with me that when my younger sister passed it took her months before she was able to wash her sheets.

But that’s what I meant earlier when I said I have a new fear unlocked. I would also be devastated to lose those last remnants of my partner if he died before me. It’s such a small thing, but I can see the pain it could cause. 

And then the whole premise with the sleeping pills, it’s powerful. Grief manifests differently with everyone. What might work for some, might not work for others. But there are definitely some unhealthy ways to deal with it, and this entire book shows us an unhealthy way of grieving for a loved one. 

When Lydia discovers that she can cross this line of using the pills to be with Freddy again, it was heart breaking to watch. She toes the line of destroying her well being in the real world to spend more time with her fiance. Forcing herself awake to ensure she’d see him during the waking hours of that reality. Counting the remaining pills to see how many more times she can visit him. She starts shattering her relationships in the real world to spend more time in this fictional one.

I understand wanting to dream and wonder of what life could have been with someone. But it’s hard to imagine being so consumed by grief in this manner to prefer a fictional reality to this extent. And watching Lydia go through it was hard at times.

I felt for Lydia. I invested in her story, her grief, and her well-being. I wanted to see her heal. The ending was a bit more somber than what I had hoped for her. It didn’t quite pan out in the way I had expected. Though the ending we see was still sweet and poetic in its own way.

This was my third Josie Silver book. The other two I enjoyed, but this was easily my favorite of hers so far. I just found it incredibly powerful and heart-wrenching. If you enjoy contemporary books about loss and healing, I definitely recommend picking this one up!