A thank you to Netgalley for sharing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Although I'm always a huge reader of 'women's fiction,' I often read the new Jodi Picoult book because she's one of the most popular authors around, including at our library. I also once read that the meticulous research she does for each book is one of her favorite parts of the process. It's also my favorite thing about her books - I always enjoy learning something new and Picoult is a master, with years of experience crafting relatable characters coupled with on-the-spot pacing. I found this to be pretty much true here, but this wasn't among my favorites by the author. Just didn't feel like reading more about the pandemic no matter the context.

Wish You Were Here is the latest Jodi Picoult novel, this time focusing on the Covid-19 outbreak. Diana has her entire life mapped out – engaged by 30, travel the world, and is climbing the corporate ladder at Sotheby’s. Her boyfriend, Finn, is a resident at a NYC hospital and has started to see cases of Covid-19. Still, they plan to leave on a trip to the Galapagos. At the last minute, Finn can’t get off work and Diana decides to go alone. Once there, the island is thrown into lockdown and Diana is stranded. This is a hard one to review without any spoilers but I’ll try…

What I liked: I went into this knowing it was about Covid but it was still jarring to read and remember how naïve we were in March 2019. Reading things like it’ll be back to normal in two weeks (eyes 2022 and new variants), wiping down packaging, quarantining mail, Finn stating they are learning as they go, is still hard and a bit of a shock to remember where we were. Finn’s despair is palatable – you can feel how tired and frustrated he is, how death is surrounding him and he can’t stop it. In contrast, Diana’s life has completely changed stuck on a remote island but she’s removed from the every day of Covid-19.

For me, I didn’t feel any big revelation, but it felt somewhat lifelike that most change is prompted by events that have us rethink our path. Picoult tackles heavy topics – life paths, dementia, Covid, medical trauma but does it well.

What didn’t work for me: For the first 50-60% of the book, I wasn’t sure where the author was going. A past fan of Picoult’s work, her novels usually pose an ethical dilemma to her readers, thrusting them in a what would you do situation. And yes, you could argue that Diana should have gone right back to NYC or maybe not done somethings on the island but at the end of the day, I didn’t really feel a big dilemma to work through. This is more a character’s struggle of finding their place in the world and what they want from life.

I don’t understand why the character of Kotomi Ito seemed to be a thinly veiled Yoko Uno. I liked that Diana and her bonded over life plans and how things change but didn’t see the need to make her modeled off a real person.

Just like Diana, I struggled with reality in the last part of the book. If you’ve read this, DM me and we can chat.

Who should read it: This could be a hard read for anyone who has lost someone due to Covid-19, dealt with severe Covid-19 illness, or just have anxiety around the situation. I don’t consider this a traditional Picoult book (at least not like the ones I’ve read). Read if you’re looking for a character driven novel about someone struggling with their life choices. In the end, this isn’t my favorite Picoult book but I appreciate what she set out to accomplish with this one.

My honest review can be read here: https://twincitiesgeek.com/2021/12/wish-you-were-here-is-a-heartbreaking-getaway/

I always love Jodi Piccoult’s books. This one is one of my favorites. Even though I had the ARC I found I had to have it in hardcover. This book drew me in from the very beginning and I lost myself in the story and in the characters. And then, just as I was wondering where this all was leading, Wow!! I will say no more except that it is a must read.

Considering the times we’re currently in I wasn’t sure how I would feel about reading this book but surprisingly I really enjoyed it. Jodi Picoult is an amazing writer and she really had me on that island. Approach this book carefully depending on how you feel about the pandemic. I enjoyed the characters and this story had me from the very beginning. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is a gorgeously written book that sucked me in from the beginning. I wasn't sure about the COVID subject matter, but it was very well done. Highly recommend!

At first, I wasn't sure I was ready for a novel set during the pandemic we are still living through. It felt too soon. When this landed in my inbox, I decided to give it a try anyway. Let me just say, I went to bed way too late too many times while I breezed through this book! It was a rollercoaster ride and kept me gripped throughout. Some of it was difficult to read but I believe the material was sensitively handled. Great book with a likable, interesting cast of characters.

This was so emotional! It’s set in New York City during the atmosphere when the Coronavirus first started. Diana and her boyfriend are supposed to go to the Galapagos. But her boyfriend has to stay to help at the hospital. Diana goes ahead to the Galapagos. She quickly realizes she is stranded there and can’t return home. She becomes immersed in the lives of a local family. What she experiences will change her life forever. This was full of emotional events and interactions, as well as surprises I didn’t see coming.

Diana is a 30-year-old woman whose life is on the right track. She has her dream job of selling other artists’ pieces, a boyfriend who she suspects will propose soon, and a relaxing getaway to Galapagos planned.
When the Corona Virus hits New York, her boyfriend informs her that he needs to stay behind and help take care of patients at the hospital he works at. Diana is left questioning her life and what she wants for her future. Is selling other people’s art really what she wants to do?

This is my first book by this author, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I really enjoyed the writing style of this book, and loved the plot. I believe it is important for readers to know that this book discusses the Covid-19 pandemic due to it being a very sensitive topic. The book shows how the lockdown and virus caused such significant changes to our daily lives - from jobs to relationships.

Anything by Jodi Picoult is an automatic buy from me! I love how real her stories are. Almost always heartbreaking, greats twists, and hot button topics. COVID-19 is going to be something those of us living through will never forget. It’s so cool that stories set during the pandemic are going to be read some day by people who didn’t live through it.

Out of the several COVID books I've read this year, this is the first to honor the experiences, fears and sacrifices of the emergency healthcare front line workers, patients and their families. Picoult did her research and it shows (please be certain to read the author's notes).

The book is divided into two distinct parts. The first half our main character Diana flees a virus ravaged NYC and her boyfriend for the Galapagos Islands. As other reviews have stated, this part is slow, but tense as Diana tries to survive in a foreign land with little connection to the outside world and little in resources. There are some holes in how she's able to survive for several weeks during the shutdown that will be answered in the second half of the book.

The second half of the book takes place in NYC and delves deep into the experience of COVID patients. Many readers will turn away from this book just because of this half of the book, but I encourage you to read it just to honor their experiences. It was eye opening to me.

It's wild how quickly Jodi Picoult was able to turn around a pandemic book! Wish You Were Here was very readable, very enjoyable, but I couldn't get past how poorly the protagonist treated her boyfriend while he was working in a hospital during the earliest days of Covid. I had a hard time accepting all the tension that stemmed from this and ultimately siding with the protagonist because I thought she was being terribly unfair.

Diana O'Toole has been looking forward to her vacation ever since she found the engagement ring in her boyfriend's drawer. Diana, a specialist at Sotheby's, and Finn, a surgical resident, have been dating for years and are a perfect match. The proposal will help Diana achieve all the goals she set for herself to achieve before turning thirty. But then a new virus hits the streets of New York. Finn can't leave the hospital but sends Diana on her own to Galapagos. The island shuts down just as Diana arrives, forcing her to rely on strangers in a foreign land. While Diana is stuck in paradise, Finn emails Diana about the brutal realities of the virus sweeping New York City and the globe. Diana feels bad that she is not there for Finn when he needs her most, but her time in paradise is forcing her to reevaluate everything she thought she wanted out of life.


I have been reading Jodi Picoult books for almost fifteen years. And she has stuck with the same formula for success for most of those years. But finally, she took a different approach with Wish You Were Here. And it was the right move. I was more engaged with this book and more invested in these characters than I have been in her more recent books. I will say that I was pretty pissed at Diana for her decision to go on vacation. It was pretty selfish and short-sighted of her. And then the big twist was revealed and - it left me speechless. CLICK HERE FOR SPOILERS. It was truly unexpected, but I think it will give thousands of readers a whole new perspective.

Bottom Line - While Wish You Were Here doesn't have the book club fodder that Jodi Picoult is known for, it is going to be a book for the ages. It tells the story of what happened during the pandemic in such a realistic way, you will definitely put it in your "keep" pile of books.

Details:
Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult
On Instagram
Pages: 336
Publisher: Ballentine Books
Publication Date: 11.30.2021
Buy it Here!
Thank you to NetGalley for the book in exchange for a review.

i was sent a copy of #WishYouWereHere by the publisher and i felt SO cool when i got it - jodi picoult was the first author whose entire backlist i devoured as a teenager, so it felt very cool and special to be sent her book.

diana o'toole is about to turn 30, and everything in her life is trending toward perfect, exactly as she planned. she works in the art auction world, and she's about to close a deal that will lead to a promotion. her boyfriend is going to propose any day, probably on their trip to the galapagos.

but then the coronavirus hits new york city, and her boyfriend, a surgical resident, can't go. he tells her to go anyway, and she winds up stranded in the galapagos, connecting with a local family and discovering a lot about herself and the natural world.

i enjoyed reading this, but i'm not sure i can recommend it. it's impeccably researched, but with any jodi picoult book there's a twist, and this one actively made me mad.

one of my hesitations in reading this was the fact that i don't think i'm ready for pandemic-focused content right now. it was extremely hard for me to read the emails from diana's boyfriend describing what life was like for him in the hospital. my mom works in the surgical ICU, and it was actively stressful to read those emails and know that she went through the exact same things.

the book never entirely redeemed itself for me after the twist, though the author's note was enlightening. it's a shame, because it's a snapshot in time of what life was like for all of us in march 2020, and i think that's important to record. i had forgotten about when we all made banana bread and watched tiger king; it feels like a lifetime ago now. overall, this is beautifully written and very well-researched.

i obviously have many complicated feelings on this one, but if you've read it i'd love to hear your thoughts! (but DM me if it's gonna spoil anything, thanks.)

3+ stars

A moderate Jodi Picoult fan, I wanted to like this book more than I did. Maybe we are still too in the midst of the pandemic. Maybe the Galapagos, while wonderful, felt so far away. Maybe Diana, with her life all planned out, annoyed me a little too much. Maybe Finn, the handsome surgeon, almost fiancée was too good for Diana. I liked the book but didn’t love it.

The New York City ICU descriptions – what happens on a ventilator – felt Very real. The book brought back strong memories of how little we knew when the pandemic started. I liked the backstory of Diana’s mother at the end. The epilogue at the end felt a bit ‘over-the-top look what I did.’

Make sure you read the Author’s Note at the end. “When I try to make sense of the past year, it feels to me like the world pressed pause.” Life changed dramatically then. Wish You Were Here is an interesting perspective of what happened and the need to examine what is important in our lives.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The novel is a storyline of the lives of Diana and Finn. Diana, an art curator for Sotheby’s & Finn a surgical resident at NYC have their life timeline plotted out to a tee. Their wedding is planned as is a trip to the Galapogos that is upended due to the onset of Covid. Finn is sidelined due to the hospital demands of the insuring pandemic but urges Diana to go on the trip they had planned.

Diana opts to go and arrives just as the lock downs go into effect. Thus the real story begins of separation, self reflection & survival during a pandemic. With little to no communication from her pre-trip life Diana must venture outside her comfort zone. Can she or better yet will she? Will her life ever go back to pre-Covid times?

Lots of twists & turns along the way… some expected some shocking!!! A quick read but lacking for me in some aspects. The characters were just okay for me… not the usual Picoult characters. While I enjoyed the book it unfortunately was not one of my favorites. There seemed to be more Covid emphasis than storyline.
Still well written & an interesting take on a real life topic.
Thank you to #WishYouWereHere, #NetGalley & Ballentine Books for this advanced readers copy.

A Covid-19 storyline with a twist. A book about healing and finding one's self. Interesting characters. Art appreciation scattered throughout the book.

"Life happens when you least expect it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a blueprint in your back pocket."

JUST WOW. I can't believe I just finished a contemporary fiction book about the pandemic but here we are. And that in real life, my sister-in-law just texted me that 6 of our mutual friends all have the Omicron variant. I cannot overstate how brave the author is for successfully tackling this subject and how fantastic this book is. I listened to the audiobook because Marin Ireland is one of my favorite narrators but I did read portions from my Kindle as well.

NO SPOILERS but this book is the story of Diana O'Toole, a New Yorker who has her life all mapped out. She has a wonderful job with Sotheby's, a boyfriend who is a surgical resident and a bucket-list trip to the Galapagos planned. She is sure that Finn will propose to her on their trip. And if her relationship with her mother is somewhat cold and distant, well, there isn't too much Diana can do about that now since her mother has Alzheimer's and cannot easily communicate.

Diana experiences what she believes to be a major career setback when the famous widow of a musician decides not to sell her prized Toulouse-Lautrec painting at auction. The widow seems modeled after Yoko Ono and added an almost magical touch to the story.

When Finn decides at the last minute to stay behind because it's all hands on deck at the hospital, he urges Diana to take their trip anyway and she reluctantly agrees. She makes the long trip to the Galapagos just as the country (and the world) begins to lock down in the Spring of 2020.

"That was how I learned that the world changes between heartbeats, that life is never an absolute, but always a wager.”

Diana begins a voyage of self-discovery and is forced to examine everything about her life as she knows it. There is very little internet where she winds up so her communications with Finn are very one-sided. His emails to her detail the details of COVID-19 and slowly begin to reveal what kind of monster the world is dealing with. He is exhausted and scared and at least Diana is relatively safe in her isolated spot.

There is a major twist that occurs about half-way through the book. The author executed this flawlessly and it had a major impact on me! I am still thinking about all of these characters and I don't know how I'll move on. This was my first book by Jodi Picoult and I fell in love with her writing. Even if you think you're not ready to read about the pandemic yet, I urge you to pick this one up. I won't ever forget it! And don't miss the Author's Note at the end, it is mesmerizing. One of the best books this year.

My favorite quotes:

“There is a profound difference between knowing your situation is temporary and not knowing what’s coming next.”

“The future is going to come, in some form whether we like it or not.”

If anyone can write a book about the pandemic - one that people would want to read - it is Jodi Picoult. While I understand if it is too soon for some, for me I was engrossed in the story, remembering how the deep the isolation felt at first and also how grateful I was for the health care workers on the front lines. She has an incredible ability to create characters who are imperfect and vulnerable but also strong and centered. There is a twist and the storyline itself moves along so quickly that this is easily a book that can be read in a day or two. The author’s note at the end of the book explains her process as well as the extensive research she did - on the front line workers, early-onset Alzheimer’s, nursing homes during Covid, the business of art, the Galapagos, mental health, etc. - was impressive. Highly recommend.

Wish You Were Here

Jodi Piccoult is never afraid to tackle issues that are so prevalent in society; school shootings, autism, sexual assault, racism, etc… so it is only natural that she would be the author to tackle the pandemic.

It took awhile to get into the book but once I did I was totally engrossed! The first half of the book takes place on Isabella, a small island in Galapagos Islands and the second half of the book takes place in New York City.

Diana works for Sotheby's Auction House and is about to acquire a rare painting from a fictional character based off of Yoko Ono who was married to a fictional John Lennon. Her significant other is Finn who is a surgeon. They have been cohabitating for a number of years. They are just about to go on a dream vacation to the Galapagos Islands when the pandemic hits. Finn encourages Diana to go on her own because as a health care provider he cannot leave during a health crisis. Diana begrudgingly agrees only to find the island shut down when she gets there. She ends up being stuck for several months and meets a young troubled girl and her father. They open her eyes to a whole other world.

The second half of the book takes place in NY and is more concerned with the pandemic. The second half was a surprise twist and that’s all I will say because I don’t want to spoil it!

I really connected with the COVID aspect because I did contract a mild case back in August after being vaccinated. I still have some lingering effects like my taste buds being out of whack, frequent congestion and after learning it from this book-COVID is responsible for my increased hair loss!

Piccoult really did her research for the novel and I really enjoyed the author’s note that was included!