The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

I shy away from sentimental reads. If an author is overtly manipulating my emotions, I have no problem rolling my eyes and setting the book aside. Luckily, I’m here to tell you that The Two Lives of Lydia Bird possesses not one moment of emotional fakery. This novel is as raw as it is charming, and one of the most earnestly heartfelt books I have read.

Freddie and Lydia have been together since they were 14, and Lydia can’t imagine her life without him. But a few months into their engagement, on Lydia’s twenty-eighth birthday, Freddie dies in a tragic accident. In her grief, Lydia’s relationship with Freddie’s best friend, Jonah, deepens as she tries to move on. But she's rattled to discover that, every night when she falls asleep, she is inexplicably transported to a world where Freddie is still alive. As Lydia deals with the emotional strain of living parallel existences, she’s forced to make decisions not only about how she wants to live, but who she wants to live with.

What I love most about this book is that in spite of the extraordinary premise, its charm is in the ordinary moments that make up Lydia’s dual lives. The Two Lives of Lydia Bird broke my heart into pieces and then put those pieces back together one spontaneous cat adoption and silent speed dating session at a time. With each tentative step Lydia takes toward healing, we learn alongside her that grief and love are both messy, knock-you-down, totally transformative parts of life. Grab a box of tissues and enjoy the journey.

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.