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Loading... The Book of Two Waysby Jodi Picoult
   No current Talk conversations about this book. I had to stop reading about halfway due to other commitments. I wasn’t sure I wanted to finish. I’m happy I did. Life is difficult, full of choices. Death and transitions are all around me during the pandemic. Doing the best we can for our children is an enduring theme. (  ) cathy.lemann | Mar 21, 2023 |  Another spectacular odyssey from Picoult taking her in a new direction. I adored her previous two novels for the commentary on social issues they brought. I adored this one for the Egyptology, for the sheer amount of knowledge and research and mythology poured into this. This took an immensely fascinating but usually unsatisfying trope and did it justice. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this justice, but it was justice done. When authors have two alternate storylines based on a choice a character makes, it frequently ends up becoming two books, but Picoult deftly wove the two together, making information we learned in one timeline important to conclusions reached in the other. I absolutely adored all the academic topics this touched on. It’s quite readable despite how informative it is, and Brian’s lectures on quantum suicide left me thinking just as the archeologic methods detailed kept me enraptured. And I loved Meret’s name. I loved the limestone post-it note. I loved the thought and care. This depicts love so phenomenally. Picoult’s greatest strength is in her characters, and her books are so fabulous because her characters face dilemmas that have no easy solutions and they feel like people so real they could be ourselves. This is evident in how Dawn reacts and relates to her family, from Brian and Wyatt to Kieran and Meret. And a death doula! What a job. The weakest aspect of this was the plane crash itself, which seems not to weigh on Dawn at all. The timeline of the beginning kept me quite confused. I should really delve into Picoult’s backlist. And this simply reinforces my belief that anything Jennifer Hershey edits turns to pure gold. ( ) whakaora | Mar 5, 2023 | Hosted by Donna for April Meeting. Excellent discussion, good questions and quotes. Yielded strong feelings on characters. ( ) Bibliofemmes | Apr 6, 2022 | I have to say I my review is going to be the opposite of many of the previous ones. Please realize this is just my opinion, and is reflecting my interests. There are 2 main components in it - the messed up love live of the main character, and the Egyptian history and death doula information. Many readers seemed to be upset about all of the information given (textbook) - that was the saving grace of this novel to me. I am not much into Egyptian history, and I know nothing about death doulas, but I found it well written/researched and enjoyed that part of the book. The part I was unhappy with was the main character - I felt she was a selfish, unthinking airhead of a personality. She didn't think about what any of her reactions would do to the other people involved, such as leaving her family (right after her plane crashed she disappears) to suddenly appear at the side of the man who she suddenly disappeared from 15 years before with no communication...and it continues throughout the whole book. If there hadn't been the saving grace of the interestingly written information, I would have given up on the whole book! (  ) Wren73 | Mar 4, 2022 | I typically like either the plot or the writing of a novel - but Jodi Picoult delivers both with the bonus of learning something new along the way. Her books have always left me questioning what I would do in whatever moral/ethical dilemma her characters are facing, and this one is no different. I loved it and could easily see this being made into a movie. I've seen a number of reviewers frustrated by the sheer volume of information in this book on ancient Egypt and archeology, but I found it all very interesting and well-presented. I love that in many of her books, I finish knowing a little bit about something new. The woman does her research, that's for sure! (  ) agbrooks | Feb 14, 2022 | no reviews | add a review
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things and A Spark of Light comes a riveting novel about the choices that alter the course of our lives. Everything changes in a single moment for Dawn Edelstein. She's on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement: Prepare for a crash landing. She braces herself as thoughts flash through her mind. The shocking thing is, the thoughts are not of her husband but of a man she last saw fifteen years ago: Wyatt Armstrong. Dawn, miraculously, survives the crash, but so do all the doubts that have suddenly been raised. She has led a good life. Back in Boston, there is her husband, Brian, their beloved daughter, and her work as a death doula, in which she helps ease the transition between life and death for her clients. But somewhere in Egypt is Wyatt Armstrong, who works as an archaeologist unearthing ancient burial sites, a career Dawn once studied for but was forced to abandon when life suddenly intervened. And now, when it seems that fate is offering her second chances, she is not as sure of the choice she once made. After the crash landing, the airline ensures that the survivors are seen by a doctor, then offers transportation to wherever they want to go. The obvious destination is to fly home, but she could take another path: return to the archaeological site she left years before, reconnect with Wyatt and their unresolved history, and maybe even complete her research on The Book of Two Ways—the first known map of the afterlife. As the story unfolds, Dawn's two possible futures unspool side by side, as do the secrets and doubts long buried with them. Dawn must confront the questions she's never truly asked: What does a life well lived look like? When we leave this earth, what do we leave behind? Do we make choices . . . or do our choices make us? And who would you be if you hadn't turned out to be the person you are right now? No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54 — Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.54)
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