The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver

 The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver is a tale of love, grief, and a cat.  

Lydia Bird's life takes an unfortunate turn when her fiancé Freddie is killed in a car accident. She struggles through life in a haze of grief, but when she takes sleeping pills, she's plunged into her life as it would have been if Freddie had lived. She's trying to balance her awake life and her sleep life and nothing is going as Lydia had planned.

Interesting characters: I think Silver has developed the characters of Lydia, Lydia's sister, Freddie, and Freddie's friend Jonah into full-fledged people.  Are they interesting, though? I think not, actually.  Let's stick with Lydia, shall we?  I know a lot about Lydia, but she seems quite boring, to be completely honest. What does she do with her time except for grieve?  Does she have hobbies?  Strong opinions about the order of the themes on the Great British Bake Off?  A secret addiction to purchasing camisoles even though she wears the same three over and over again?  A habit of listening to the band Oasis at top volume? Silver has created absolutely real people who I think would be boring in person to hang out with. 

Believable conflict: I wrote recently about how there was a trend in 2020 to write romance novels with a central topic that was NOT the main romance and that's what we have here. There's a romance of sorts, but it's not the main topic of the book.  It's a hard book to read because Silver does a great job of representing the grief Lydia feels after losing Freddie, but all of that conflict is internal to Lydia and that conflict is not in the relationship that I think is supposed to be the romance in the "romance novel" name. 

Lydia makes some bad decisions in the book and those bad decisions lead to tension between her and her sister and mother. I thought the conflict in the relationships among the women was well-executed and I really think that Silver should have focused more attention on this conflict.  It would have made for a more riveting read.

Emotional tension: There's lots of emotion in this book. If you're grieving someone, this might be a book that comforts you (or not, of course, if you want to avoid reading about other people's grief).  But the emotional tension from the romantic "leads" is non-existent. 

Happily ever after: There's an abrupt ending. I found it puzzling more than happy making.

Silver can write books, but I felt meh about One Day in December and I feel meh about this one. I turn the pages and Silver makes it go down easy, but Silver's true talent is writing about female relationships. It's something I noted in One Day in December and something I noted here. The romance isn't what I want, but the true representation of how hard it is to maintain female friendship is spot on.