The Book of Two Ways

The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult

Paperback, 432 pages

To Be Published 20th October 2020 by Hodder & Stoughton

Shelves: adult-fiction, arc-or-review, books-i-own, contemporary, currently-reading, death, historical, mythology, read-in-2020, realistic-fiction
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

Jodi Picoult's stunning new novel about life, death, and missed opportunities. Who would you be, if you hadn't turned out to be the person you are now? Dawn is a death doula, and spends her life helping people make the final transition peacefully. But when the plane she's on plummets, she finds herself thinking not of the perfect life she has, but the life she was forced to abandon fifteen years ago - when she left behind a career in Egyptology, and a man she loved. Against the odds, she survives, and the airline offers her a ticket to wherever she needs to get to - but the answer to that question suddenly seems uncertain. As the path of her life forks in two very different directions, Dawn must confront questions she's never truly asked: What does a well-lived life look like? What do we leave behind when we go? And do we make our choices, or do our choices make us? Two possible futures. One impossible choice.

The Book of Two Ways is Jodi Picoult's latest offering and possibly, in my opinion, her most cleverly written book to date. The Book of Two Ways is a coffin text, an Ancient Egyptian map of the underworld/afterlife made up of two routes - land and water, separated by a lake of fire, but both ending up at the same place. In this book, Jodi creates her own routes for her main character, death doula and former Egyptologist, Dawn Edelstein. 

Picoult has a real talent for really exploring subjects well with both knowledge and wisdom and her writing is often breathtakingly beautiful, something that I was repeatedly reminded of within this book. What really stood out for me in this book was the character development and the relationships that Picoult writes about. 

Dawn's discussions with her latest client, an elderly artist named Win, were a pleasure to read - sobering, heartfelt, sometimes amusing, always emotional. Dawn's discussions and explanations of death both with her client, her husband and the effect upon herself were very thought provoking and well written.

The main relationships explored in this book are the ones between Dawn, her husband Brian, a scientist whom she first met whilst visiting a hospice and her first true love, fellow Egyptologist, Wyatt. I think that Picoult did a fantastic job of exploring Dawn's emotional feelings and relationship between these two men. Whilst both characters were well written and I did feel a lot of compassion towards Brian, Picoult did such a fantastic job of creating Wyatt's character that I must admit, I fell a little bit in love with him too! The sections of the book that are set in Egypt  and exploring Dawn and Wyatt's relationship quickly became the highlight of the book for me.

In regards to relationships within the story, I particularly loved reading about Dawn's somewhat awkward but ever-loving relationship with her young daughter, Meret, a girl struggling through the trials and tribulations of being a teenager. Meret was such a realistic, troubled character who really grabbed my attention and I enjoyed seeing how her relationship with her mother and herself developed and changed throughout the book. 

I had two feelings about The Book of Two Ways - like Dawn, our protagonist, I find death absolutely fascinating and reading about a death doula sounded really, really interesting - which it was and I feel that Picoult really did the subject justice. As a bit of a history nerd, I loved reading and learning about Egyptology as a child, which made me think that the parts of this book that are based in and around Egypt would be really intriguing - which it was, in parts, but unfortunately not always. I quickly became lost in the beautifully portrayed setting of sandy Egypt, imagining myself there in the tombs with the characters, but unfortunately, I found myself getting a little bored after some of the heavy information regarding Egyptian history and hieroglyphics. It is so clear that Picoult has, as always, done a huge amount of research for her story, which I respect enormously and obviously has helped the story, but at points I felt like I was reading unnecessary, textbook-style information. I do find the history of Ancient Egypt very interesting, but I felt completely overwhelmed at some points - it was just too much. Thankfully, the beautiful writing, setting and interesting relationships kept me gripped for the rest of the book.

I had two feelings about The Book of Two Ways - The largest part of me absolutely loved the writing, the story and the emotions, but another part of me also loathed the thought of having to read pages and pages of complex history and even quantum physics. For me, fiction books should be a form of escape. If I want to study a subject in detail, I will choose to read a non-fiction book. Unfortunately this is where the book fell short for me and the reason why I didn't give it a higher rating. I still highly recommend the story for the beautiful writing, the brilliantly thought-provoking exploration of the often-taboo subject of death,  the characters and relationships - they alone kept me gripped. I can't wait to see what Picoult brings us next!