Sorry I have been able to get to this book yet, but unfortunately due to this years troubling events my reading mojo has deserted me. Once it returns I will certainly be reading this book and updating my review.

I’ve read a couple of Jodi Piccoult’s books, and as my previous reads, this was an enjoyable book with emotionally wrenching parts!

I won’t lie, I found a lot of the Egyptology parts went over my head and I ended up skim reading them. But the story was still moving, especially the death doula parts, some which had me in tears.

A lovely read that may make you ponder things in your own life.

Brilliant, life-changing, thought-provoking excellence. A work of art, interweaving the beauty of first love with the choices life throws at us.

It is many years since I read a Jodi Picoult novel. I read the famous "My Sister's keeper" when it came out and another novel about a suicide pact. I remember both of these as being quite tightly written with a good pace, if a few too many "ishoos"/sub plots thrown in. I found this new book to be really turgid for the first half, really plodding and I just didn't look forward to my nightly read. The jumping forward and back in time (seemingly ubiquitous these days) was a bit confusing and to be honest, I really didn't like or care about the main players. The explanations about Ancient Egyptian rituals and deciphering hieroglyphs, whilst sometimes interesting trundled on for too long and so distracted attention from the storyline and suffered from being quite didatic and lecturing in their tone. I felt the story perked up a bit just over halfway through and gathered a bit more pace. but suffered from "chick lit" type romanticising and a tired "twist." I thought the narrative was okay, somewhat dull but not the "stunning novel" the blurb promised.

I have read lots of books by Jodi Picoult as her attention to detail through extensive research is what makes her books so great. I loved the premise of this story, and although not a great ancient history fan, I was delighted to see it available on Net Galley. The story is centered around Dawn who has the unusual job as a Death Doula and is involved in a plane crash. Fortunately she survives but this event forces her to examine her life through a sliding door experience.
Dawn has been married for 15 years and has a beloved teenage daughter yet she feels something is missing with her life. Could it be a life with Wyatt whom she loved when they were young studying Egyptology? The story details both scenarios which leaves Dawn with many questions and soul searching times.
Be prepared for brain overload as there is so much in depth information on ancient Egypt and hieroglyphics that I got lost so my interest did wane slightly. I did however find the family emotion side compelling and would urge fans of Jodi Picoult to give it a go.

I started off this book not really enjoying it and I’m a huge Jodi Picoult fan so was a little disappointed but I’m so glad I stuck with it. About half way through it just all clicked for me and I loved it. It broke my heart into a million pieces which is typical of this author but it’s also a beautiful story full of a well researched novel about Egypt and the book of two ways which was fascinating as well as her job as a death doular. Great read.

After Dawn survives a plane crash. She feels that she made a wrong decision fifteen years ago when she gave up her studies in Egypt.
Now we get to look at her life and the life she could have lead if she had made a different decision.
I found this story very disjointed and the Egyptian history failed to hold my interest.
Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Publication date 20/10/20

NO SPOILERS FROM ME

This felt like a bit of a departure from a typical Jodi Picoult novel. It had all the usual elements - beautifully written, strong, realistic characters and a plot line involving at least one moral dilemma, but it included far more detailed information which I found quite heavy going at times. As a result it took me much longer than usual to complete as I had to keep rereading the more complex passages.
Overall this did not detract from my overall enjoyment of the book, which I found incredibly moving at times, particularly the passages about death.
It is, at heart, a love story and a very emotional one at that. It built to a conclusion which I had to read twice and then thought about for days after.

Different but a great book.
4.5 stars out of 5

I’d like to thank the author, publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this advance digital copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

I greatly enjoyed this book, thank you for giving me a preview copy. The plot was interesting and fast paced and I sympathised with the characters. This is the first novel I have read by this author but I hope it will not be the last!

received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is the story of Dawn who is a death doula, wife to a professor and mother to a teenage daughter who is struggling with body issues. Dawn is involved in a plane crash as the plane goes down all she can think of is her former lover who she worked with in Egypt when studying to be a Egyptologist.

My expectations of this book was that it was going to be a sliding doors scenario where she gets to live both lives. In my opinion this really wasn’t what this is. This is the story of her life with her husband and daughter and also her life as a Egyptologist. We go back and forth between the two. I really didn’t like any of the characters in this book. I thought Dawn was an incredibly selfish character. My main problem with this book was that rather than concentrating on the main story she goes into a lot of details about the history of Egypt and also Physics. The book felt like a bit of a slog and I really struggled to get through it. I fear that if I hadn’t been reviewing this book I would have not finished it. Most of this book read like a textbook rather than a contemporary novel.

I have read a lot of Jodi Picoult's books and each time I think that it won't live up to previous books and each time I am wrong. The Book of Two ways is everything you would expect from a Jodi Picoult novel and much much more.
Dawn is a grad student studying and working in Egypt when she gets the call that will change her life forever. She must leave Wyatt her fellow student who she has fallen for and return home to where death and life awaits her. With her life falling apart she finds Brian, a man she is able to rely on and who will guide her through everything that is happening and soon she finds herself settled with a family not quite knowing how she got there but when a chance meeting in her work as a death doula makes her start questioning everything will she have discovered that she went the wrong way all those years ago.

This book is stunning, it made me smile, it made me cry. I loved the Egyptology sections and found myself googling parts to find out more, or to give me the image in my head whilst I read. The book was wonderfully written and one that I read straight through not wanting to put it down.

Absolutely amazing! Jodi picoult delivers incredible stories every time and this one was no different!
I couldn’t stop reading and just devoured the book!

I so wanted to love this, as a die hard Jodi fan I have loved every book she has written, especially A Spark of Light with it's backwards timeline, but i got so bogged down in ALL the Egyptology that it was like reading a textbook with a lot of name dropping and the chapters were very long.
I didn't know much about Egyptology, so I did find it interesting, similarly about being a death doula.
I really enjoyed Win and Felix' story and I loved Brian, but didn't find Dawn to be a very likeable character and I really disliked the ending, if Jodi had another ending in mind I think she should have gone with it, I don't think the ending was an improvement.
I usually find with her books there's some kind of moral choice or ethical question and I have one opinion and then come to have my opinion changed by the end, but I didn't have that at all with this one, at times it was like it was written by someone else.
Usually flying through a book in a few hours, staying up late and putting off tasks, this took me 3 or 4 days to get through. It did give me a few things to think about though, I'll look forward to the next book.
Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for my eARC in return for my honest review.

As one of my favourite authors I was really looking forward to reading this book but I really struggled with it. I usually read at least 1 book a week and this book has taken me 6 weeks to read.

The concept is really good and I thought I’d find the information about Egypt fascinating but the book just felt too disjointed - I think it’s because the writing styles are so different between the two paths.

I’m always excited to see a new Jodi Picoult book released.
I have read most, if not all, of her books and can be fairly confident that I will enjoy them.
Unfortunately, The Book of Two Ways, did just miss the mark a little for me.
It has obviously been very meticulously researched, I liked the characters and the concept behind the story about life and death and choices we make.

However, while reading the book the timelines of when events were actually happening became a little confusing at times.
There was *a lot* of information about Ancient Egyptian society and beliefs which, although I can see that it was relevant to the story, at times the sheer quantity slowed the pace of the story and I found my attention drifting. I’m not sure the book needed quite as much detail in this area.
I was also disappointed with the ending.
Overall, it is a good book with solid storytelling. I would be happy to recommend it generally as a book to read, but if you are looking specifically for Jodi Picoult books it is not her best work and there are others I would recommend before this one.

The Book of Two Ways by Jodie Picoult promised so much with a story featuring the mysteries of ancient Egypt, second chances, and ‘what if’ scenarios. Sadly, however, for me, it was so bogged down in lengthy and difficult to follow scientific and archaeological detail that it just didn’t deliver on that promise.
Picoult has clearly done a lot of research and is keen to put a great deal of it into the book. We are forced to delve through copious information on quantum mechanics, philosophy, parallel worlds, Egyptian history, religion and hieroglyphics, and the mechanics of archaeological digs. And that’s without getting into the details of the protagonist’s day job as a death doula helping terminal patients transition from life to death.
At times I felt like I was reading a textbook or back at school in a study group. It was so hard to follow all the detail that I found myself having to make notes to follow the subject. After a while, I started skimming the information-heavy sections to skip the ‘lecture’ and find the story.
Unfortunately, the level of scientific info just killed the flow, and that’s a shame because buried (very deep, like the Book of Two Ways) within all of this is a fascinating story about the choices we make.
Dawn Edelstein lives in Boston where she works as a death doula and lives with her quantum physicist husband Brian and her teenage daughter A near-death experience is the catalyst for her to reconsider her life and the choices she has made. Should she go back to her life in Boston, or should she head to Egypt and a very different path she abandoned 15 years earlier, with her first love, the archaeologist Wyatt Armstrong?
Most people can identify with the book’s themes of missed opportunities, paths untrodden, regrets and unfulfilled dreams, it’s just a shame that in my opinion, Picoult has somewhat smothered these with an overwhelming amount of repetition of unnecessary and unhelpful textbook details.
With thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an advance copy of his book in exchange for an honest review.

A really great story once again by Jodi she never fails to deliver.I loved the love story running through the book beautifully written and also the location of Egypt.The only downside was perhaps to much archeology but then if you love that world you will love this book.

While I did enjoy this read I must admit that I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I have enjoyed Jodi Picoult's books in the past. The premise was good but that tale was a little loose in part, it wasn't properly sewn together. The archeology of Egypt dominated the book and while I've travelled the country from north to south and back around again, I enjoyed and did appreciate the descriptive passages I feel that others who didn't have the same level of Egyptian travel experience as I do might not enjoy it quite so much. This book was also quite down hearted at times and a little depressing. While the of level research was evident from the detail included I personally didn't enjoy this read quite as much as I"ve enjoyed her previous, absolutely excellent reads.

The Book of Two Ways is a perceptive and sparky book dealing with important themes in an understated way. I raced through it and will be thinking about it in the coming days and weeks.

Drawing on multiple timelines, the story is adept at tackling issues such as death, fate, missed opportunities and family. It thematically draws upon Egyptology, Physics and the arc of the characters to unfold a tale that I could not put down. There are times when the research/detail (notably the Egyptology) was too much at the forefront for me, but not so much that it impacted on my huge enjoyment. I would thoroughly recommend it.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Hodder and Stoughton for an ARC in consideration of an honest review.

This is the best book of the year for me, astonishing, riveting, heartbreaking and totally absorbing. Jodi Picoult tackles the decisions we make, or are made for us, and how they shape our lives. More importantly how we let them shape our lives.

The twin themes of love and death run through the book. Dawn was an Egyptologist, involved in a passionate relationship with a fellow graduate, Wyatt. Her career was brought to an abrupt end by the death of her mother and she now works as a death doula, helping her clients as they come to the end of their life. During her mother’s passing she fell for a fellow relative, Brian, and they are now married with a child.

The book opens with Dawn at an unsettled point of her marriage and confronting her current and former relationships due to the influence of a new client. Win has never got over a passionate early relationship with the father of her deceased son, despite a long and happy marriage to Felix. Win tells Dawn, “I think you can love more than one person in a lifetime. There’s the one who teaches you what love is, even if it doesn’t last....And the one who makes you a better human than you were, even as you do the same for him”

The Book of Two Ways is an Egyptian guide to the afterlife. Dawn goes on her on own journey to her future, Jodi Picoult cleverly bends time and structure so we can’t quite follow where she is heading. Her path of love, near death and decision making is life affirming even as it brings you to tears. I learnt so much about Eygptology from her meticulous research and it forced me to face questions about the inevitability of death.

This is a magnificent book, I cannot recommend it highly enough.