Diana O’Toole has her life all mapped out. She has the perfect partner in life, a surgical resident by her side. They had goals but then, everything went off track. Then Covid-19 hits the world while Diana and Finn were supposed to be on on their dream vacation. Finn stays behind to work but Diana goes alone.

But upon her entrance to the island, everything shuts down and she will have to navigate a life in the moment, that is unplanned.

Jodi Picoult can write about anything. It took me awhile to get into this book but once I did, I had to keep going. I was caught up in Diana's world. There were so many profound statements that it felt like the author also went along on the journey along with her character.

The descriptions, the scenes were so vivid. I felt like I have visited this wonderful place because of her words. I enjoyed the takeaways. There were so many themes: self-discovery, self-love and forgiveness.

Memorable quotes:
"Busy is just a euphemism for being so focused on what you don't have that you never notice what you do."
"You may not be able to choose your reality. But you can change it."

Thank you#Netgalley for this read.

At first, I thought I didn't want to read this book because it had to deal with Covid, and well, we are still living through Covid, and it is exhausting, but I was happily surprised with this book. I was instantly drawn in, and I loved the journey and reflection that Jodi Picoult took us on.
Great book with a positive spin on the whole Covid pandemic.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book.

Very covid heavy, I didn’t love the characters, and overall pretty slow and very detailed. Great twist halfway through the book but I think I would've liked it better had that story line continued.

Wish You Were Here
My thanks to #Netgalley and #RandomHousePublishingBallantine for this eBook in exchange for an honest review. It saddens me to write this. This was the first Jodi Picoult book that I can say I did not enjoy. I waited so long to write this review – I was hoping time would make my heart grow fonder. It did not. Of course, the writing is brilliant, the multi-storylines are brilliant, it’s got beautiful imagery, and it’s just gorgeous at times, but Covid. #toosoon. I just couldn’t get into a story like that while living it in real life. It was claustrophobic at times. It made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. I read to escape, not live the horror in the pages. This book just made me feel ookie. Of course being Picoult, I had to read it, I had to finish it. I didn’t hate it, I just didn’t love it like I usually do. I feel like I can’t even do a decent review. I love the Galapagos, and the imagery is just beautiful. There’s that.

I have stewed about this review for over a week now, going back and forth about how I feel about this book. Reader be warned, this book deals directly with the COVID pandemic. While I thought I would be okay, there were some points that really got to me. Just be prepared :)

The first 60% of this book was not great for me. I had a very hard time with the main character Diana's motivations and attitude towards her boyfriend who was working in a hospital during the pandemic. I would have DNF'd this one if not for the other reviews touting "the twist" that came later. My FOMO won out, and I continued, which I am glad that I did. When the twist came, it hit hard. So hard in fact, that I said, "Are you f*cking kidding me?!" out loud, and almost threw my Kindle across the room. I then had to take a break from the book for a day or two.

After that point, the book got significantly better. While I still didn't like Diana, I felt the story moved along quicker, and had more depth. There were parts that were still hard to read re: COVID, but overall I am glad that I finished this one. In my opinion, I would have liked this a lot better if the twist had come earlier. There was so much put into the first part that dragged the story out and just made me hate Diana more with every page I read. The second part just felt more like the Jodi Picoult style that makes you think and see life in a different way.

My overall rating ended up at 3.5. I think if you're interested in this one or in Jodi Picoult's books in general, you should definitely read it. I know others have absolutely loved it. For me, if that first section hadn't taken more than half of the book, I definitely would have rated it higher. This may end up as a book that I think of more fondly as time goes by, but we'll see!

Jodi Picoult is one of my automatic-read authors. I read each of her books as they come out. So basically, I had no idea what this story was about. Nope, didn't read the synopsis, just knew I would read it no matter what. I'm never disappointed in her stories.

That being said, I had no idea I was going to be dumped back into the beginning of this whole pandemic, right when it started. Whoa, did I really want to go back to when all of our lives changed?

After reading an interview that Jodi did, I understand why she wrote this book and am amazed at how quickly it all came together. She felt the need to capture life as we came to live it as a way to document what we were all going through. And as a way for us to remember and to better understand what was going on at the time, how people were struggling, suffering, and surviving.

As per usual with Jodi's books, there's the twist that the reader is not expecting and the life lessons to be learned. In my opinion, this should be a must-read for everyone, to help us all better understand this whole pandemic world and to hopefully see the light at the end of the dark tunnel that is life right now.

Wish You Were Here is a book that you want to read without knowing much about it, so it is difficult to review and not give too much information, but it is one of my favorite books of the year and was full of surprises.

It is a story of Covid and relationships, beautifully written, and revealing. Picoult did a great deal of research for the book and it shows, making the story almost more realistic than some of what we read in the news...but it is also much more than that. A remarkable book and highly recommended.

I want to say more about all of the ways Picoult turned this story on its head, but that would not be fair. I've recommended it to my daughters and friends so I will hopefully have someone to discuss it with.
Don't miss this one! 5/5

NetGalley/Random House/Ballentine

Literary Fiction. Nov. 30, 2021. Print length: 336 pages.

I requested this book because it was Jodi Picoult, but I was still nervous to read it because of the focus on Covid, so I kept putting it off until I felt ready to read about it. I’m glad I did because I don’t know if I would have enjoyed it as much as I did if I had read this sooner. There are a lot of detailed hospital scenes, of what patients and hospital staff experienced during the height of COVID, so be warned.

This one is hard for me to review without spoilers so I would just say this was close to 5 stars for me. I only had two complaints, most of the chapters are long (especially for someone like me who likes to stop reading at the end of a chapter) and the story line also slowed down around the last quarter, at which point Diana’s character really started to grate on my nerves. Apart from that I loved it. This book was well researched, and it shows. As with all of Picoult’s novels, it's so beautifully written that I really felt forall of the characters and what they were going through and wanted them all to have happy ever afters.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the eARC.

🏝 I have no words… ok, I have some words but definitely not ones that can effectively convey the amazingness that is this book.

This was my first book about the pandemic and I wasn’t sure how I’d like it. I wasn’t necessarily interested in reading about the pandemic since we just lived through it. But I ended up reading it in one day because I just couldn’t put it down, wanting to follow Diana along on her journey of self discovery. I love all the relationships she had- they were all a bit complicated in different ways making them feel so real.

I don’t want to give away too much and I think that Emily Henry summed it up best in her review describing it as “Wise, surprising and utterly extraordinary.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5
Takeaway: a powerful story of a resilient woman who questions everything and learns more than she ever could have imagined.

A great book that just happens to be about the pandemic!

Jodi Picoult is back! I have had some hesitation about the author’s past couple of novels. However, this book is just as good as those that made her famous. She brings to light people caught in different types of circumstances during this unfounded time in our history. The characters are wonderful and truly relatable. Each reader will find someone that reminds them of themselves or someone they know.

One of the best books I’ve read in 2021.


I received an ARC from Random House – Ballantine through NetGalley. This in no way affects my opinion or rating of this book. I am voluntarily submitting this review and am under no obligation to do so.

WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T STOP READING THIS BOOK BEFORE YOU HIT THE SECOND PART!

This book totally blew me away. The first part was very well written and interesting. It deals with a woman who leaves her boyfriend who is in the medical field and can't leave on vacation after the pandemic hits. She goes on their vacation alone. She's stranded on an island after the world shuts down. It tells of the struggles of the medical field personnel back in New York through the boyfriend's eyes. Too soon? Not for this former hospital worker. I found it riveting.

Then comes the second part. POW! WOW! There's absolutely nothing else to say without giving things away and I just hope you get to experience this book the way I did.

Would I want to read this if I were personally very impacted by Covid (either had it or lost someone very close to me)? I'm not so sure. However, the information in the book and the research done by the author were both well done and so important to getting the whole picture. This book is going to stay with me for awhile.

Thanks to Random House Ballantine Publishers and NetGalley for the gifted copy. All thoughts are my own.

Another amazing book by Jodi Picoult! Diana is an almost 30 year old with big plans for her life. She wants to get married to her boyfriend, Finn (a surgical resident), have kids, and become a big name in the art auction world. When Covid-19 becomes a global crisis, Finn, is required to work a lot of extra hours at the hospital. Their vacation to the Galapagos islands is not longer feasible. He insists that Diana go on her own, while he stays back and works. As she gets to the island and settled in, everyone is placed on quarantine and she cannot leave. She struggles with being so far away from home and not knowing what is happening with the virus. There is a major twist in this book that made me gasp out loud. I did not see it coming.

This book brought up several emotions for me, but mostly clarity. The book opens when the world shut down for Covid-19. Diana has decided to leave her boyfriend in NYC and continue on to their planned trip to the Galapagos Islands. He is a resident at an NYC hospital, and on the eve of the world shutting down, he encourages her to go without him.

As Diana navigates through a strange island, with little to no internet access, we discover her insecurities and her fears. As her two week "vacation" comes to an end we identify that she is not able to return home as planned. As she tries to put the pieces together and figure out how long she will have to stay and survive with little to no money and still no communication back home.

In the first half of the book, I was completely engaged, felt Diana's struggle, her fears and her unknowns. The people she encountered, the relationships she formed, kept the pages turning.

Part two of the book, was the twist I never saw coming. To avoid spoilers I won't be commenting on much of the storyline, but this is where my emotions swelled. I have personal experience with this portion of the book, while some of it was difficult to read, some of it finally made pieces click for me.

I would highly recommend this book, it was a fantastic read. However, most of the book is dealing with Covid-19 and the trauma. Please be aware if you have sensitivity to that topic

This book was not quite what I was expecting. I enjoyed it a lot, but...

Let's start with the basics - The writing was very good as you would expect from Picoult. The character development was also good and the characters interesting. The location was well described without being overly descriptive. Everything you expect from Picoult's writing.

The story itself is what was different. To start with, it was strange to be reading about the pandemic when we aren't quite out of it yet. There are details of the overcrowded hospitals and lack of supplies, having to order food in and wiping everything down, not having any idea what is going on or being able to visit loved ones even when they are dying among other difficulties that we all had to adapt to. Those things are still in the very recent past and with the virus and its variants still lingering, it is hard to feel detached from them. There were also a few moments that felt overly political to me. It wasn't anything I disagreed with and the times and even the virus itself were very politicized, so it fit in the story, but it still felt like poking a bruise.

More importantly, the story went in a direction that I wasn't expecting and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Just as I was getting comfortable with our characters and the direction the story was heading it took a turn that was pretty abrupt. I didn't quite have time to adjust and I needed a moment to shift my thinking and accept the story.

I do think that stories set during the Covid pandemic need to be told and this is a story that will stay with me for a while. Overall, an interesting read.

What a fascinating book! My jaw dropped at the end of part one. This is an unflinching look at how the world was affected at the beginning of Covid. If we hadn't all lived through this, it would read like science fiction. Lives lost, lives changed, nothing is really the same as before we had Covid in our world. And it probably never will be.

The experiences of people who had been on vents and/or had almost died were particularly interesting. A loved one of mine had a near-death experience and the scene he described as to where he had been was totally real to him. How do we know these experiences aren't real? There is so much we don't know - this book did a great job of exploring that.

Diana O’Toole is the type of woman who has her life planned and in Finn she seems to have the perfect partner. Diana works as an associate specialist at Sotheby’s and Finn is a doctor. Diana accompanies her boss to meet Kitomi Ito, a reclusive widow of a rock star who was murdered years before ( Heavily resembles Yoko Ono). Kitomi has decided to sell an infamous piece of artwork and has invited auction houses to present their ideas on how to handle the sale. Despite being told to observe not speak, Diana offers a different idea than what her boss pitched and wins over the widow. When news of the pandemic begins to spread, Kitomi decides to back out of the sale.
Diana is sure that is the end of her career and is ready for the vacation she and Finn have planned to Galapagos. Finn tells her that all medical personnel have been told they are needed and he cannot go but she should go without him. While Diana isn’t the type to travel alone, when she considers the non refundable deposits and tickets, she decides to take the trip. From the time she arrives on the island things go wrong, first her luggage is lost, at the ferry everyone is leaving and she is told the island is closed for two weeks, she decides to stay but finds the hotel is closed and there is no cell phone reception. An elderly woman takes her in and allows her to stay in an empty apartment at her home.
While she is enjoying beautiful sunsets the world outside has come to a halt and while Finn leaves messages of the horrors of trying to save lives, she is trapped and isolated until she connects with a young girl and the two bond.
This is a novel that makes you reflect on what’s important and because we are still dealing with the ravages of Covid, hopefully it can be a catalyst for discussion. The descriptions of Finn dealing with patients is painful and raw and may be triggering for readers who lost someone to Covid. It also touches on the death of a parent in a nursing home and not being able to be by their side.
This may be my favorite book by this author. Brilliantly done.

This is very and I mean very centered around Covid. If you are not ready to read fiction about covid do not pick this up. I beg you.

I was intrigued to read this and see how the pandemic was handled. Picoult is a skilled author and this story written by anyone else would have been a wreck. She has done her research. She spoke to covid survivors, front line workers, and used her own experiences of isolation and loneliness to write this book.

This book brought back a lot of those first very scary, isolated feelings we all had at the start of covid. The unknown and the questions we all struggled with. This was a hard book to read. My heart hurt for the healthcare workers who were and still are worked to the bone. The main character finds herself stuck in the Galápagos Islands while her boyfriend is at home in New York. This idea of separation from your loved ones is absolutely terrifying. I was honestly so stressed throughout this whole novel.

I didn't enjoy this novel, the subject matter was emotionally tough and I was anxious the whole time. But this novel really gave a voice to the health care workers and for that I"m glad Picoult wrote it. But am I still mad at her for writing this? Yes.

I used to adore Jodi Picoult books. The last book or two have not been my favorite, but this book reminded why I loved her words so much. She takes real, relatable, true life things, hard things, and puts them into a story that you cannot put down. This book took me back to her early books that I adored so much.

I will say - trigger warning - this book is about Covid. The tragedies. The triumphs. The gritty, the death, the recoveries, the lingering things that come from it. But it is well done and you will feel so much when you read it.

I don't want to give too many details about the story itself, because I almost feel it's a story best read going in blind. It will make you feel a wide range of emotions, but the one I carried out of it is HOPE!

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine/Ballantine Books for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review

Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult is an emotional story about life, choices, and the things we cannot control. So basically, the last few years we have all lived. I do not want to give anything away, but it was captivating, engaging and a bit surprising. Diana has a plan and life seems to be heading just the way she wants. Then March 2020 hits and nothing seems to be the same.

Diana and Finn have been saving and planning their trip for a while. They are excited. Then the virus that seemed to be far away hits close to home. Finn, as a doctor, stays and Diana goes on the trip. Now the world seems to be shutting down around them and they are worlds apart. Their journey was thought-provoking, emotional, and moving.

Happy reading!

Wow, this book was excellent. It absolutely shook me. Having lost family members and friends to COVID-19, I wasn't sure if I was ready for a novel centered around the virus. I wasn't sure if this was even a great time for Jodi to publish such a book. But man, this book blew me away and I am so glad I read it. Though "Wish You Were Here" revolves around the pandemic, I don' t think it's really about the virus at all. Instead, this is a beautiful book about what it really means to be alive, and about what is really important in life. It's about stepping back; about taking nothing for granted. I was utterly captivated by the lyrical prose and realistic characters. Like all of Jodi's novels, this one is both poignant and provocative, with relatable characters who are dealing with real world challenges. I was very glad to be (fittingly) stuck in an airport for five hours so I could read this lovely book from start to finish. I simply could not put it down.

As the world struggles to return to normal, I think books like this one will become increasingly important to remind us what we all went through together and how much we were all changed. As the main character says, " You can't plan your life...Because then you have a plan. Not a life."

A thousand thank yous to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the amazing privilege of reading an advanced digital copy of this marvelous book in exchange for my honest review. It is not a book that I will soon forget.