Book Review: The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult

I have nothing to say right now, so let's get to the review:

The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult

  

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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 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, her beloved daughter, and her work as a death doula, where she helps ease the transition between life and death for patients in hospice.

But somewhere in Egypt is Wyatt Armstrong, who works as an archaeologist unearthing ancient burial sites, a job she 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 the survivors are seen by a doctor, then offers transportation wherever they want to go. The obvious option for Dawn is to continue down the path she is on and go home to her family. The other is to 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 beside 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?

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This book, where to I even start? The book starts right off with a plane crash, so we know that Dawn, our main character is on a plane crash and she survives. But from there? We go back and forth, back to her past self and forth to some part of her future, but this back and forth? We don't really have dates of them, so what do we know? We know that she is telling us part of the past past, part of still past? And then part of her present? We won't know what the present is until...well you will have to read to find out or I will spoil you.

But, let's talk about so of the things that I did like and found interesting in the book.  I really enjoyed and learned about Egypt and Egyptology and learning about Dawn when she was just a college student, where she was fascinated by all things Egyptology and how she ended up in Egypt and the best time of her life.  Where she was just pretty much starting her life, find lost tombs and find pharaohs and learning all about Egypt life from thousands of years ago.  And about The Book of Two Ways, something she has always been wanting to find out more about it.  But one thing she didn't think it would happen was also finding love while there, and with the boy that she hated at first.  Both were young and students and stupid in love and thought that the whole world were theirs to see and learn together, however things don't always work out the way we want and Dawn learned it on the worse way possible.  One day she got a call that she never thought she would and her whole world and life changed and she never looked back.  Until many years later, when her life is as simple and complicated as a normal life can be.  And sometime simple changed everything for her this time and she decided to take charge and see it through this time.

This book is not an easy book to read, you need to pay attention, you need to have patience with it, but in my opinion, if you ask me if it was worth it?  Yes, it was, yes for sure.  I loved the history part of the book.  I loved the complicated part of Dawn's life and how she was struggling with it and let's be honest, it's how we all fell.  Life is not as easy as a book or a movie shows us all the time, and I loved how this book for once made a character as uneasy as Dawn, so unsure of herself and not knowing all the time if she was making the right the decision.  So, with that been said, was it a perfect book? No, it was still confusing at times with back and forth and not know which part of the characters life we were reading.  

Overall, still a solid 4 stars reading and I totally recommend it.  I'm still thinking all thinks Egypt and want to travel there more than ever now lol.  

XOXO,

Nelia