2.5 stars

I've read a number of Picoult's books, and this one was quite different. It's apparent that it was well researched, and I love the fact that it's a dual timeline book,. The writing felt a bit different in this one, though it did have themes of love, loss, and moving on. She may make the reader consider end of life care,which is something many don't think about until it's really needed. The detailing was very intricate, but it was a bit overwhelming at times and a bit technical to try and follow. It seemed to bog things down in some places. It almost felt like reading a textbook, and the excess details crowded out the rest of the story line. However, it may make some readers interested enough to do their own follow-up research. Perhaps I'd feel differently if I didn't read this during the pandemic, but with all that's going on in the world, this book just wasn't the escape I'd hoped it would be. It was a much heavier read than anticipated.

I was so excited to read a new Jodi Picoult book. I am such a huge fan of hers. Although I haven't loved some of her books, I have liked all of them at least a little bit. I have read almost all of her books. This book just did not do it for me. I could not finish it. I got about 35% of the way through and just could not slog through anymore facts about Egypt or the pyramids or hieroglyphics. I enjoyed the non-Egypt chapters but just did not see much of a plot forming and with being more than 1/3 of the way through I figured if I didn't love the book at this point, it would be like a chore to finish it and it was a fairly long book at almost 500 pages. So I quit. Sorry Jodi but this one just was too much detail and things that are way too advanced for me. I love to learn but this was just too much like reading a textbook and not understanding the subject matter! I can't wait for the next book and will still be a loyal Jodi reader!

The Book of Two Ways was such a fun read. Ancient Egyptian tombs, family drama, and a love story? Sign me up! This book tells the story of Dawn, an ex-Egyptologist, and her journey to finally answer to her own desires for once. I loved the way that this book jumped between places and timelines-each just as intriguing as the other. I loved how real the characters felt. I especially love Picoult's style of writing, and her way of sucking you into the narrative, causing me to swoon alongside Dawn as she relieved her past love. There were so many in depth sections about the rituals in Egypt--something I was not at all expecting from this book, and it was really cool to see how Picoult drew parallels between the age old "spells" and the modern struggles her characters were facing. I had never read a Jodi Picoult book before, but had obviously heard lots of great things! I am so glad to have read this one and will have to check out more of her work in the future.

Your plane is about to crash. As your life, your hopes, your dreams, your frantic thoughts plunge out of the sky, what is it—who is it—you fix upon? For the passenger in seat 12C, surprisingly, it wasn’t her beloved husband, Brian, or her much-adored daughter, Meret, that came to mind. No, it was Wyatt who streaked across her consciousness.

Dawn Edelstein survives that crash. In the aftermath of having had those life-flashing-before-her-eyes moments, the airline offers her a flight to anywhere she needs to go. She should go home, but where is home? Is it the home she knows now, or the home she once found in the man she loved so many years ago?

The Book of Two Ways, by Jodi Picoult, is a book of what ifs, a book of parallel universes, a book of diverging and converging pathways. It is a book that explores what might have been even as one is living the what is.

Before Dawn got the call that her mother was dying of cancer, she was deeply, passionately in love with her life as an Egyptologist graduate student working on a dissertation delving into The Book of Two Ways. That book was the Egyptian's map to the afterlife. There were two pathways one could follow on the journey to the next plane.

When Dawn was faced with the decision no daughter wishes to face, she chose to leave behind her much-anticipated life of the mind, in academia, and life of the heart, with Wyatt Armstrong, the man with whom she shared the exhilaration of discovery. Together, they had burned bright with promise.

As things come to pass, Dawn’s season of maternal care-giving leads her to a new career as a death doula—one who helps those on their end-of-life journeys. She meets, and marries, Brian Edelstein, a physicist. Their life is unfolding rather predictably until Dawn’s moment of reckoning on that plummeting aircraft.

Dawn accepts that free ticket to anywhere from the airline. Her destination? Egypt. Wyatt. Her unresolved past.

How will this decision impact her future, her marriage, Wyatt, her relationship with her child, her trajectory through life? No spoilers here. You will want to read The Book of Two Ways to learn how things resolve themselves (or not).

I have always found Jodi Picoult’s books to be compelling. She is an extremely gifted writer who always takes her readers on journeys that matter. This book was one of my most anticipated reads of 2020. I was elated when approved to review an ARC ahead of the September 22nd release of this publication.

My enthusiastic interest in The Book of Two Ways had to do with my current explorations into becoming an end-of-life doula. It comes as no surprise that the chapters dealing with Dawn’s interactions with those in the process of transitioning from this life were my favorite chapters.

Though I have long found Egyptian life quite fascinating, I felt a bit mired in the denser sections of this book (and I typically enjoy the challenge of great depth). That said, I greatly admire the intense research and explorations that went into birthing this highly ambitious novel. I’m glad I read this book and do encourage you to let it take you on what it is sure to be a very reflective journey. This book is meaty and will require something from you.

If you, like me, have ever pondered the what-ifs of your life choices, you are sure to come away from this read with the kinds of insights that will enrich your current pathway. I have no doubt this book will come to mind the next time I am standing at a crossroads.

I wish to thank Jodi Picoult and her publishing company, Random House, for this opportunity to read The Book of Two Ways in return for an honest review.

The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Piccoult is extremely well written and extremely well researched. The book involves two timelines which Piccoult does seamlessly. I have read many of her novels and I felt this book was different than her usual writing style. I felt the book provided an honest and accurate account of love, loss and the pain of moving forward. While this is a work of fiction, the perspective that it presents regarding the support we should be giving to those who are dying is spot on. It definitely makes the reader think of ‘end of life care’ whether it is for themselves or someone close to them.

While I appreciate the voluminous amount of research that went into writing this book, it was just too much. There were many times when my eyes glazed over. The amount of historic yet minute detail of Egyptology, Quantum Physics, Photogrammetry, geomatics, digital mapping in 3-D,
compared to linear measuring, hieroglyphics & software technology,
epigraphy, (the study of inscriptions), the obligations of a Death Doula and other topics just too numerous to list here. I felt that Piccoult was weighed down with information on all of these subjects. I feel this well spring of information took away from the story line because the reader will need to do research on the author’s research in order to have a grasp of what is actually being conveyed. It was a frustrating read. I felt the premise of the story was promising but ultimately got lost in all the heavy textbook information.

Thanks to Random House, the author and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am a fan of Jodi Picoult but between this book and her last one, A Spark of Light, I guess either she has changed her writing style or I have changed my reading likes....this book was pretty heavy full of academic information about archeology, egyptology, quantum mechanics and physics along with a healthy does of hospice care and being a death doula (a profession I was completely unaware of!). It was too much information that I felt kind of clouded the story. I think her goal was to make it all work together and it did in some parts but the academia spoiled the novel part of it for me. I liked the idea in theory though, too. The title character Dawn at a cross-roads in her life after surviving a plane crash and going back to what could have been alternating with what really is for her. The end was somewhat confusing...I feel like many of her other books are so much better! Not terrible but just not for me I guess. Thanks so much to NetGalley for the ARC!!

Dawn Edelstein is a death doula, helping those in the throes of death transition withpeace and understanding along with their families. She had wanted to become an Egyptologist but had to return to the US when Dawn's mother calls and lets her know she is in the final stages of cancer and will be dying. That leaves Dawn to fly home to take care of her mother's last wishes and then decide to takeover raising her younger brother, Kiernan. Dawn meets Brian in the hospital while he is visiting his sick grandmother. Brian and Dawn have been married for 15 years and have a daughter Meret that is going through the teenage years with a weight problem. Between the job, her daughter's hatred of herself things can get a little crazy. So when she gets on a plane that has to make an emergency landing and crashes the ;life that flashes through her mind is not that of her current life, but the life she left in Egypt as a renown Egyptologist.

Jodi Picoult did quite the research for this book because there is so much Egyptian history that is provided and so many story lines it gets confusing. Plus, the pronunciations of all the Eqyptian nomarchs kept e going to find out how to say their names correct and keep their life lines together. Very informative with great detail so this book almost seems like a history study book rather than a fiction novel and then add in a triangle love story. Jodi kept me on my toes through the entire read and did a good job of making the past and present lives collide.

Thank you Netgalley and Ballentine books for providing me an ARC of this for an honest review.

The Book of Two Ways was a bit of a departure from Jodi Picoult's typical style, in my opinion.

When Dawn Edelstein survives a plane crash, she begins to completely re-evaluate her life. The man she thought she might end up with if off fulfilling the dream she once had and she wonders if she should've pursued him and her dreams after all.

I am a huge Jodi Picoult fan. I really wanted to love this book as much as I have loved all her other books but my interest was lost somewhere on the way to Egypt. This book felt like she was the one that was the big Egypt nerd (I say nerd, as John and Hank Green use the word, as someone who is unapologetically enthusiastic about a topic) instead of her character, Dawn. I appreciate how much research Picoult pours in to every book so that the reader can be fully immersed in the world of her characters. This time, however, I was so immersed that I felt like I was in an Egyptology class, not among the ruins, but rather in a basement classroom staring at the clock waiting for the bell to ring. That being said I did like the premise of the story that there are two ways a person's life can take. It makes you think about the choices made in the past, the what if we opened door B instead of walking through door A.

I really wanted to love this book as I have all her other books, Jodi Picoult can really suck you in and her characters are beautifully real. The characters were amazing and the idea interesting but I found myself skipping over a lot of pages. I like Egyptology but not enough to want a fiction book to be filled with so much of it. I raced ahead past the information to look for the story. The trouble was once you took away the history lessons there wasn't a lot of story to see.
I admire Picoult for her attention to detail and the amount of research she would have done and the time taken. What I love about Picoult's writing is the drama of the relationships, the secrets that need to be uncovered and the story told from different perspectives. Here we only had Dawn as a narrator and she went on a bit much!
I will always jump with joy at a new Jodi Picoult book and look forward to her next one.
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC, this is my honest review.

I struggled with the topics in Jodi Picoult's fall release, The Book of Two Ways. I always appreciate Picoult's ability to incorporate a wide variety of issues and themes into her novels, but this one just had too much?! Philosophy, hieroglyphs, symbolism, and a lot of scientific information...it felt like brain overload for me and I just don't have the capacity right now. I appreciate her efforts, it just distracted me from the storyline too much and I had to put it down for now.

Thank you to Ballantine Books for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

5 stars! Thought provoking! How would your life end up if you chose a different path or your path changed? This book brought out so many emotions while reading. Highly recommend! Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an egalley in exchange for an honest review.

Sometimes, when I'm reading a book, I start writing the reivew before I finish reading. I only had a few sentences put down for this book by the time I got close to the end, which is good, because I had to scrap them. In other words, this book is not what it seems. It's even better.

After surviving a plane crash, the airline offers to fly Dawn wherever she wants to go. Does she choose to return to her daughter and husband of fifteen years, or does she choose to find her lost love, the man she thought of as the plane was going down?

Thus we are introduced to the theory of parallel universes, and so, the chapters alternate, beginning with Dawn choosing to return to Egypt to explore the what-if she left behind. In the other chapters, Dawn returns to her home in Boston, and the familiar struggles of marriage and motherhood. Or is that what's going on? There's a twist (don't expect me to give it away!) and in typical Picoult fashion, there are no clear right answers.

Picoult is not coy about what she's setting up. Dawn's husband is a physicist who explores just that topic. As a graduate student in Egyptology, Dawn's thesis was on The Book of Two Ways, an ancient Egyptian text that essentially posited that, after death, one's soul can take one of two routes, but will end up in the same place, feasting with Osiris. But sometimes, Picoult gets a little heavy-handed, such as having one of Dawn's clients face a very similar dilemma, and having Dawn learn a lot about her own life as she works things through with her client.

In Picoult's hands, even this last doesn't seem like much of a flaw, and if it is one, it's easily forgiven for the pleasure of the rest of the book. This is the kind of book that you want to read again as soon as you've finished it, that will make you want to go out and learn all about hieroglyphics, and that you'll recommend to everyone you know.

I enjoyed this book but did find it hard to really get into it as I would get bogged down in the details of Egyptology. I also found it hard to connect with the characters as they were being described in two different timelines, although I love this concept of what happens in each of the choices. The death doula profession was fascinating to learn about, which was the main character’s second chosen career (Dawn was an Egyptologist in younger years). I do think if you’re a fan of Jodi Piccoult, you may like this book. Just be prepared for a lot of the reading to be a little like a textbook & lots of back & forth in the two storylines.

Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Book of Two Ways is an ancient Egyptian text showing how the afterlife could look depending on the choices we make. Which path will we choose?

Dawn's life is completely upended when she is involved in a plane crash. While the plane is falling from the sky she thinks of her first love in Egypt, not her husband and daughter in Boston. After surviving the crash she has to choose whether to find that first love or return home to her somewhat tumultuous life back home. She has a fulfilling career as a death doula as well. We get to follow both scenarios in this very creative look at how one choice can completely change everything.

Such a fascinating book. The death doula information is fabulous. I have a friend who is a hospice social worker and while not as fully engrossed in her patients as this death doula, still has many similar stories and it such a loving, needed career. The beginning of the book started slow for me- it felt like an Egyptology textbook at times. But I now see why the initial lecture was needed in order to understand what was going to happen as the story unfolded. It also took me a couple chapters to realize we were following the "two ways". That was completely on me not paying attention to the chapter titles (I think in print I would have seen it quicker). Definitely an intriguing story line and while I mourned so many of the choices made (and sometimes annoyed) they were very human choices!

Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I love the way Jodi Picoult writes. She draws me in and shakes me around. This book was informative, heart wrenching, heartbreaking, inspiring, with a punch in the stomach twist. At first I did not like the ending, but after thinking on it ,- good call. I highly recommend.

I love reading Jodi Picoult. She usually writes about some serious and hard to talk about social issues, and there are usually a ton of emotions that are felt while reading her books. The Book of Two Ways was different from the other Jodi Picoult books I have read previously. This book was told from a one person perspective, but were two different timelines of that one person and the two possible life choices. While it took a little to get through the first half of the book, due to the heavy textbook type information about Egypt and the ancient burial sites, the book was very enjoyable. If you can see through all of that to the heart of the story, it really is heart-wrenching and emotional. From Dawn's marriage to her client's lost love, there was so much emotion. I really liked this story and am now fascinated by Egypt's history and by Dawn's profession as a death doula. Thank you NetGalley and Random House for a digital arc of this title.

Dawn MacDowell is a gifted Egyptologist with a specialty in The Book of Two Ways, the direction for ancient Egyptians to guide them in the afterlife. But while she is absorbed with the historical treatment of death, the reality hits too close to home when her mother tells her she is dying. Dawn must leave the work and the man she loves to be with her mother and care for her young brother. When her mother dies, she is trapped with the need to handle her mother’s debt and the care of her small brother. Egypt is so far away. Dawn runs away from her first loves and drawing on the experience she’s had with her mother, becomes a Death Doula, helping terminal patients deal with the myriad of things left unfinished. The struggle Dawn feels over her lost career, the man she loved first, the family and career she’s created conflict in heartbreaking ways.

When I started reading this book, I was afraid that the Egyptology portions which are so important to this book were beyond my understanding, but as Jodi Picoult is so good at doing, by the end of the book I just wanted more.

I loved this book. I enjoyed each level of the story and enjoyed the timeline hopping because it made it easy to understand why Dawn was so confused. I loved learning about the history of Egypt, Death Doula’s and even the quantum physics Dawn’s husband teaches. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Thank you to the publisher, Ballantine, and to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in advance. The book will be published on September 22, 2020.

I’m afraid my love affair with Jodi Picoult might be over. :( She has progressed into much more of a sophisticated writer...but I prefer her earlier writing style.
No secret Picoult goes to great lengths to research the subjects in her books, but at times I definitely felt like I was ready a school textbook, instead of a fictional book for leisure. It seemed like I should be taking notes, like there was going to be a test at the end
I enjoyed the main storyline, but I feel like she was writing to over write and try to turn it into something much more than it needed to be.

I am a huge Jodi Picoult fan. Each of her books teaches me something new while bringing me into a whole new world of experiences through the characters. Therefore, I was thrilled to receive an advanced reader copy of The Book of Two Ways.

As a young girl I used to dream of going to Egypt as an archeologist and all I would discover, so I was excited to see that Picoult’s latest novel would take me into Egypt with an exciting premise.

Synopsis: 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?

As always, Picoult did a fabulous job with her research. I appreciate all the hard work she put into keeping the book factually accurate, but I think she may have gotten so into her own research and excitement about all the new information on Egyptology, chemistry, death doulas, etc. that she went a little overboard on the factual details in the book, so at times the story read like a textbook.

I did love learning about the main character’s profession as a death doula. This was the first time I had heard of or encountered this profession, and found it fascinating.

Overall, this book just didn’t seem to have any real flow and by the end of the book I felt like I didn’t have a connection with the characters or feel that they were fully developed. There was still some enjoyment to be found in the reading along with some mystery, suspense and history.

I’m still a fan of Jodi Picoult and I’m looking forward to her next book.