It makes sense that it's time to start seeing books about the pandemic hit the shelves. And it makes sense that I would choose to read one written by Jody Picoult. What didn't make sense was that I kept checking to see if she had a co-writer because the voice of the book just didn't sound like other books she has written.
I was all over the place with how I felt about this book, almost giving up at point and then fully engaged the next.
The second half of the book had some poignant moments, and the first half had stunning visuals and memorable characters.
The research done by this author is incredible and well worth the read simply for what you will learn.
This book really came together for me, however, in the Author's Notes at the end. That was good writing. Those were words I want to remember.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Ballantine Books and the author for this ARC of Wkish You Were Here.

Diana is nearing age 30 and her wishlist for the next ten years is on track for fulfillment. Career goals (promotion at Sotheby's), life goals (find house in Westchester, get dog have, kids by 35) , and relationship goals - (marry surgeon boyfriend - she even found the ring hidden in her his drawer). But what happens while you're busy making plans? Well, in this case, the pandemic happens. Alternating between a lucid trip to the Galapagos and reality in Manhattan, Picoult takes on the question of lasting love, discovering what you really want, and believing in yourself.
Filled with deep thinking prose and rich setting description, the novel encapsulates pandemic life and shows how the struggles broke people, asking us to cut to the parts of us that matter.

For me, as much as I loved the introspection, the story didn't come together. There were so many good ideas but as they are sewen together a few stitches were dropped. Since the story is told in parts, the seams really needed to be in alignment.

Diana and her surgeon bf are supposed to be going on vacation when cases start to rise and he has to stay behind to work in the hospital. Diana has to navigate traveling while the world starts to shut down.

Wow.

To read about the pandemic while we’re still living the pandemic is surreal. To think how many pieces of literature that will be written.. we are living history. The research @jodipicoult was able to put into this book all while staying quarantined is also incredible. This is why she is my favorite.

Read this if you want to feel that appreciation for our health care workers, if you want to grieve, if you want to escape. If you want to feel seen. It has it all.

It wasn’t what I expected but I loved it all the same. Wish You Were Here comes out Nov 30th. Take it easy while you read this one.

Jodi is back! I absolutely loved this book and devoured it over the course of the weekend. While reading a book set during the pandemic, while the pandemic is still going stronger than we all had ever thought did hit a little hard, this book was exactly what I needed. Jodi's classic research (but not to the extent of the book of two ways) shines, her heart, and her characters are classic. It's hard to say a lot about this book without spoilers, but if you're a fan of Jodi, you'll likely be a fan of Wish you Were Here! My only complaint is that it was too short!

** spoiler alert ** Review: Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult published by Ballantine Books

I am a fan of Jodi Picoult’s and have read about a half dozen of her books but I wasn’t ready for this one. In the “Author’s Note” Picoult writes, “...I was wondering: How are we going to chronicle this pandemic? Who will do it? How do we tell the tale of how the world shut down, and why, and what we learned?” Since we are still in the midst (I don’t feel like I can write “middle”) of the pandemic I just don’t want to read about it. I want my fiction books to be a place of escapism from the past twenty months of the global pandemic, and our current stark reality of approaching almost 5 million deaths globally (according to WHO). I also can’t write a complete review of this book without spoilers so I will not even try. I did prefer the part of the book that focuses on the Galápagos Islands - which still chronicled the beginning of the shutdown and pandemic - rather than the perspective of New York City’s shutdown and subsequent mayhem. I’m also very tired of the antiquated paradigm of the female protagonist having to choose between two men (tiny spoiler). There are other options to drive a plot and other options for female protagonists in the 21st century; like no man, or a woman, or just something else please.

I received an ebook ARC from NetGalley - all opinions are my own.

Reading Wish You Were Here was like reliving last year.

Diana knows what she wants in life, she set goals and makes plans. At the beginning of 2020, she and her doctor boyfriend Finn are planning to visit the Galapagos Islands, Diana thinks it's a trip that will change their lives, and it will do it but in the way she thought. Just before traveling, the city is quiet and is still an air of disbelief, there are less than 100 cases in the city, and it's believed that in two weeks everything will return to normal. Believing that, Diana travels alone because her boyfriend was denied hospital vacations all the medical personnel is necessary, just in case.

It was not an easy trip, her suitcase was lost, there are new security measures and when Diana disembarks in Isabela, the island is in quarantine, the hotel is closed, she doesn´t have a lot of cash, there is no internet reception and she does not speak Spanish, luckily a local invited Diana to her house.
Which Diana thought would only last for two weeks, will turn into an asylum of months.

Two different stories of the same reality intertwine, Diana is in quarantine on an island with not many inhabitants and that luckily there are no cases of Covid, while Finn living in New York, is just the opposite. While she is locked up in paradise, he has to deal with a mysterious disease, thousands of people are getting infected, the hospital is not enough, and not only that, they don't know how to treat the new disease.

The author did an incredible job recreating the first stage of Covid, my brother is a doctor and he has to work with Covid patients, the emails that Finn writes were like hearing again what my brother lived last year, in Finn you can hear the despair, anxiety, and fear of not knowing what is happening and how to control it, the descriptions are super real, so you are not ready to read how the first months were for the medical staff and front lines better refrain from reading it.

On the other hand, at first, Diana is anguished, she is alone and out of her comfort zone, little by little she will get to know the locals, including Gabriel and Beatriz, with whom she will make a beautiful friendship, the three have wounds to heal and between the 3 will support each other and discover new things. Love, love the descriptions of the island, without a doubt a beautiful place to visit.

It is a story that touches on different topics, of course, Covid, fear, loss, and grief, but also finding yourself, seeking your happiness, that not everything is set in stone and things change. It is a beautiful story, heartbreaking, and very realistic.

I want to give this five million stars. It’s tough to review with no spoilers, but it’s a beautiful book and as usual, Jodi handles a difficult topic with grace and intelligence. This book will stick with me for a long time.

A pandemic closing down many businesses, hotels, air travel - this sounds a lot like our current pandemic, but this story takes place in the Galapagos Islands.
Diana's boyfriend Finn was supposed to accompany her on this vacation, where Diana suspected that Finn was going to propose, but due to the virus, Finn was stuck working. The get-away is not at all what Diana has invisioned and she feels well out of her comfort zone. She had planned her life and this was not part of it.
I usually like Jodi Picoult's books, but I found this one not totally capturing my interest.
I do thank the author, publisher and Netgalley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Jodi Picoult has a gift that cannot be replicated or fully explained, she is just that excellent of an author. Wish You Were Here is incredible, raw, gut wrenching and beautiful. The year is 2020 and Diana is about to leave on an incredible vacation to the Galapagos Islands with her “near-fiance” Finn. Her life is perfectly mapped out; she’s working her dream job in NYC while Finn is a resident, they’ll marry, move to the suburbs, have two kids and a dog. But, just as they are about to leave, a strange virus called COVID-19 threatens to invade the city and Finn cannot leave the hospital. Diana finds herself as the sole tourist on Isabela Island for days that turn into months. With limited exposure to the rest of the world, Diana finds beauty in the quiet and calm. She befriends locals and briefly allows herself to imagine a life different than the one she mapped out. My summary has to end here because in “true Picoult” fashion, there are twists designed to blindside readers. I will say that I had to close the book and take a break and I needed time to process what I’d just read. This book is an incredibly accurate portrayal of how COVID-19 brought the world to a stop and broke us all in different ways. Reading Wish You Were Here is a remarkable experience and I would encourage and recommend it to anyone that feels mentally ready to absorb a book that is deeply intertwined in the pandemic that we continue to face. I know that I will be thinking about the characters in Wish You Were Here for many months ahead and I’ll see their stories in the faces of those around me. I have never highlighted so many passages in a novel! I eagerly anticipate the release of Wish You Were Here at the end of November 2021 and look forward to many engaging discussions around this novel.

I will add that Wish You Were Here was my favorite ARC of 2021 and I’m eternally thankful to both Netgalley and Ballantine Books for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Mix current events with general fiction with political commentary and you have the ingredients for this author’s latest in a long line of hits. Although I would rather forget the politics and the pandemic, the author does an excellent job of weaving them into an entertaining novel.

Diana, almost 30, had her life planned out. She was an associate assistant at Sotheby’s, and a promotion was in the very near future. She loved her boyfriend, Finn, who was a surgical resident at NY Presbyterian Hospital.They were set to celebrate her 30th while on vacation to explore the Galápagos Islands. She was confident Finn would propose to her there. They would marry, move to the suburbs, and have children. Life was good and her future was on target.

However, those plans came to a abrupt halt as Finn couldn’t take a vacation since his hospital was dealing with an unknown illness that left people struggling to breathe. All medical staff were needed. Finn told Diana to go without him since it was a very expensive vacation. Diana didn’t like to go anyplace alone, but she reluctantly agreed. Once Diana reached her destination, she was excited to start this beautiful adventure. But once again, life did not go as planned. The world was shutting down as the unknown illness, now referred to as COVID-19, was killing people at an alarming rate. Diana was trapped on an island that was now under quarantine. Everything was closed including the hotel where she had her reservations. She didn’t speak the language, she had little cash on hand, her luggage was lost, and there was spotty cell service. She needed to rely on the kindness of strangers for food and shelter until she could get off that island and return to Finn.

I loved how the author took the reader from Diana’s quarantine island with its natural beauty and amazing animal inhabitants to another island, Manhattan, where the once bustling atmosphere took on the eerie silence of Covid’s reality. The emails sent between Finn and Diana reflected these differences and the struggles they both experienced being away from the ones they loved.
Finn’s emails also described the horrific events taking place in hospitals and the relentless efforts of the medical and hospital staff to help those in their care. These scenes were written, through the eyes of a doctor, with heartfelt compassion and at the same time were realistically heartbreakingly sad. Then the author skillfully took her reader to a life and world apart from the epicenter that was NYC. Through Diana’s eyes we explored various breathtaking areas of the Galápagos Islands, and its history with Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

This book also dealt with a father’s love for his daughter, a teenager discovering her sexuality and feeling so alone and isolated, and a daughter dealing with her Pulitzer winning mother’s dementia who lived in a nursing home during this time period.
I also found Diana’s work story interesting and the history of the Toulouse-Lautrec painting. Of course, with COVID shutting down all non essential businesses, Diana and many others found themselves out of jobs. Throughout the story, the characters reflected upon their lives and the choices they made. Ultimately, lives changed, plans changed.

Jodi Picoult always writes interesting and well researched stories. They are engaging and emotional. Some are more relatable than others. This story, Wish You Were Here, is a story that will resonate with all her readers… and on so many different levels.

An ARC was given for an honest review.

This book is definitely unique in the fact that it is a fiction piece written about the coronavirus pandemic. Diana works in the art auction world at Sotheby’s and her boyfriend, Finn, is a surgical resident at the hospital in NYC. The onset of the pandemic threatens their upcoming trip to the Galapagos, where Diana is convinced Finn is going to propose. As COVID unfolds, their plans as they knew them changed. Finn must stay back at the hospital to have all hands on deck. He tells Diana to go on their trip without him. They saved for so long to afford it and aren’t able to get their money back. Diana goes to the Galapagos only for there to be a major plot twist that I did not see coming. I thought it was extremely creative. On the other hand, although I by no means thought our president handled the pandemic tactfully or intelligently, I felt the jabs at him throughout the book we’re unnecessary and took away from the overall enjoyment of the book. It felt like a fiction piece trying to be non-fiction at times. I did also have some feelings of it being a little too soon since we are still living in the pandemic. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy!

I enjoyed this book. Having it being set during the pandemic that we are currently living through was eye opening.
Living through a pandemic is hard and reading about a couple who is dealing with his on the frontlines brings everything into perspective.
This story is about finding yourself and be happy with who you are before you can be happy with someone else. I’m still torn on the big twist that happened. I wonder if it’s all true. I don’t want to reveal too much without giving it away.

I just read "Wish You Were Here" by Jodi Picoult at lightening speed! This was such an amazing book about the terrifying topic of COVID-19. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but essentially it's a story of Diana and her boyfriend, Finn who is a doctor at a NY hospital during the pandemic. Finn stays behind to take care of the COVID patients while Diana goes to the Galapagos without him. But the twists in this book are amazing! I was blown away halfway through the book! Parts of the story are tough to read about - where Picoult describes all of the COVID symptoms and patients dying at the hospital. So if you're triggered by medical descriptions or death, this may not be the best book for you. But if you look past the COVID details, you have a great story of love and humanity. 5 stars!

Obsessed with this book! The story was so well written and executed I picked it up and was it basically in one seating. I couldn’t put it down.

The Pandemic is documented and explained thoroughly but this book is so much more than that. The characters are deep and multifaceted. The story line is riveting and so descriptive I felt I went to the island myself.

One thing though is I wanted more at the ending. I need a sequel asap.

Oh my, Jodi Picoult, you have outdone yourself with Wish You Were Here. I received an ARC of this novel from from Netgalley and Random House. I knew I was in for a well-researched, engrossing read, but this blew me away. Without giving too much of the plot away, I started to look further into the works of Toulouse-Lautrec, the album covers of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and the Galápagos Islands. Of course, I also researched the effects of COVID on not only the surviving patients but the healthcare workers as well.
She usually throws in a tire-screeching plot twist, but I didn’t see where it would come in until…. Part 2.
Whoa!!
I actually had trouble getting through certain parts for two reasons- I lost a family member to COVID and I almost died earlier this year of another condition. It was all very real to me and there were times I was reading through tears. Once it’s released, run, don’t walk, to grab a copy.

This is a book that will stay with you long after you are done. After I finished this book I had to talk about it. We all have experienced so much since March of 2020. This is a MUST READ!!

Diana is a typical almost 30 year old woman who has a plan for her life. She works for Sotheby's, lives in NYC, has a great boyfriend who is a surgeon, who hopefully will be her fiance very soon. They have plans to travel to the Galapagos where she is sure he is going to propose. However Covid-19 happens and her boyfriend Finn has to stay back in NY while she continues on their vacation. Quarantine happens and she is stranded on the island. Her live is about to change in ways she never imagined.

This book absolutely blew me away but more than that it made me think about what is important in life. I feel like this book will resonate with anyone who reads it. We were all changed by this Pandemic and I don't think I will ever read a better book about this subject.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for this advanced copy.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I loved the first half. Gabriel was my favorite, and I was so upset when I found out he wasn’t “real.” I didn’t like Finn at all, and I’m not sure why. I liked how Jodi described life during COVID so accurately. It described the anxiety so many people had. It wasn’t a bad book, but I wish the ending was a little better.

I loved so may things about this book, but found myself pushing through. Rich, well crafted characters drive the horrifying true tale that is Covid. Themes of loss, death and abandonment….and Covid.

Wish You Were Here is a story that mirrors real life. The story is Diana and her boyfriend Finn and how they handle this virus, did we even know there was a virus, and their experiences, outlooks on life and looking back on life. It is a story that certainly takes you back and look at your own self from the past almost two years. I loved it and could not put it down. Be very sure you read the authors notes, there is a little bit of all of us here. Thank you #NetGalley#BallantineBooks#WishYouWereHere