if you had the chance, would you live your life differently? What changes would you make? These are the questions that are central to this novel by Jodi Picoult, and they are just as provocative and challenging for the main character, Dawn Edelstein, as they are to you.

When the flight attendant announces that their plane is in trouble and they need to prepare for a crash landing, Dawn, starts thinking about her life. Not the life she currently has with her husband Brian and her daughter or her work as a death doula, but instead about the path she didn’t get to pursue- a life as an archeologist studying Egyptian death rituals and her first love, Wyatt Armstrong, a colleague she met in Egypt.

After surviving the crash and pronounced fit to travel, Dawn is offered a ticket to wherever she wants to go, but instead of choosing a flight home, she chooses a flight to Egypt.

As we weave through Dawn’s past and present, we begin to see the fault lines in her life.  We see the choices that were taken from her when she was needed by her family. We see kindness and strength that her husband to be, Brian, showed as she was grieving and the joy they found in Dawn’s pregnancy and got married.

Life unfolded, but it was not the life that Dawn had expected for herself. In Egypt, she gets a glimpse of the life she might have had, the thrill of unearthing something from long ago, the mystery of looking for meaning in the hieroglyphics, the intellectual stimulation, and of course, getting reacquainted with Wyatt Armstrong who is now the director of the archeological dig and a professor at the university she attended years ago. 

Like her clients, Dawn must answer the question about what a well lived life looks like. What is the legacy we leave behind? Do our choices shape us or do we shape our choices? Are we the sum of our choices or are the choices we make a reflection of who we are? As Dawn confronts each of those question, we are invited to answer them for ourselves.

Picoult always raises interesting questions that drive her books and this one was no exception! Her characters, Dawn, Brian, her daughter and Wyatt are all carefully imagined and brought to life. Wyatt, particularly could have become a stereotypical or iconic figure, but Picoult deftly avoids that trap. Some reviewers complained about Picoult’s explanation of the history of archeology, Egyptian burial rituals, archeology and the work of a doula, but I found these parts rather interesting and enlightening. Of course I am a history major, so that might explain that! But if you are interested in the questions Picoult asks, this is a great book to work through them!

Brenda’s Rating: ****( 4 out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to: Sharon, Marian and Keith

Book Study Worthy? Yes

Read in library ebook format.