Linda's first review of 2021...

After listening to a radio interview with Jodi Picoult’s recently, I felt compelled to read her latest book “Book of Two Ways”. It sounded like such an interesting concept.

A woman surviving a plane crash and given the choice to fly back to her family or to return to the life and love she left fifteen years prior. I was sadly disappointed with this book. Not Jodi Picoult at her best. I found it hard to connect to the main characters. I’m not put off reading her books though. It’s just this one that I couldn’t quite get into.

Much of the book is like reading a textbook on Egyptology. In fact I ended up skipping past the Egyptology sections – this cut out about a third of the 417 page read. In fact we are given a lot of information about the occupations of all three main characters.The depth of information on each of these occupations distracts from the flow of the story. Dawn is a death doula (I now know what this is); ex-lover Wyatt is an Egyptologist (I have learnt a little bit); Dawn’s husband Bryan is a quantum mechanics professor (still don’t get it).

In three words: Choices; Egyptology; Romance

Summary:

A middle-aged woman in the midst of a mid-life crisis. On a plane flight home and told to prepare for a crash landing, Dawn Edelstein’s thoughts are not for her family, but for Wyatt Armstrong, the lover she last saw fifteen years ago.

Only some survive the crash. The airline offer to fly survivors to anywhere they wish. Dawn finds herself with a difficult, possible life changing, choice. Will she return home to the comfortable life with her husband and daughter, or return to the lover she has not seen for 15 years.

Instead of flying home to her husband and daughter, Dawn chooses to fly to Egypt to seek out Wyatt and the life she may have led. The life in Egypt as a graduate student cut short when called home to her dying mother. The life in Egypt where she had fallen in love with Wyatt. The story weaves in the parallel lives Dawn lives or could have lived, and ultimately the choice she will have to make for her future.

The best part of this book was turning the last page.