Yea. I was hooked.

So I was lucky enough to get sent this months ago. I was seeing a ton of mixed reviews on it, so I didn’t prioritize it.

But then I talked to Friend about it. And then I read her post about it. So, here we are. I’m glad she loved it because there was this one part where my mouth fell open, I had chicken skin all over. I replayed and reread one part like 4 times to make sure I wasn’t tripping. I had to text someone about it and said she got chills again just thinking about that part.

Wow.

Will this be historical fiction at some point? How come this almost feels like a memoir or some sort of nonfiction.

👩‍⚕️ Showed dark, scary side of being doctor during this time.
🧻 Showed some differences of before this thing started and how things unfolded as we sailed into this uncharted territory.
🌋 The tropical location.
📝So quotable, I wrote some down to share.

So much depth. So much vulnerability. So much worry. So topical. So relevant.

A nod to the healthcare heroes. A nod to the people who suffered from covid. A nod to everyone that’s lived with it, aka all of us.

The author’s note was really relatable. She spoke about how we adapt. How books can help us escape. She also touched on how she had asthma and was scared about the virus. I’ve had asthma my entire life and have been on a twice a day steroid since I was 14. I was careful and selective during this time because like the author said, I can’t breathe good on a normal day, what would this do to me. She touches on how the world pressed pause but we have to keep going.

This was amazing. The audio was fantastic. *chef’s kiss*

Thanks to @librofm for this ALC copy. #librofm Also, thanks to @ballantine for the ARC.

This book, this book. I was very anxious to read a book that not only took place during Covid but was rumored to reference it very significantly in terms of the plot, but I am glad that I pushed past my hesitations. If you are going to read a novel about Covid, you want it to be as compassionate and carefully researched at this one. Seriously, I read the entire acknowledgements, because I was so curious on how she got so much right.

Diana and her boyfriend Finn live in New York City, he is a surgical resident, and she works in Art Sales. They are both very driven and have been planning out their lives with exacting energy. It is 2020, and they have saved for a vacation to the Galapagos for like four years. When Covid first appears in the horizon that March, he tells her to go on the trip without him on their dream vacation, because they cannot the deposit back. She goes and winds up in lockdown on an island, where she gradually becomes increasingly involved with the family that takes her in.

There is a twist after the halfway point that you will not see coming, but this book really did a fantastic job of giving you that look at how easy one choice changes everything. I could not put this book down, and I thought I was sick of talking about the last year.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC.

I've struggled with how to review this. Granted, I gobbled it up, beguiled by Picoult's storytelling and turning the pages quickly. But lingering in my mind is the question of how someone who has had COVID would read it. Diana's perfect life working at Sotheby's and living with her handsome physician boyfriend Finn implodes when COVID arrives in NYC. At Finn's urging, she heads to the Galapagos for the vacation they were meant to take together and there she meets Beatriz and Gabriel. Or does she? Picoult is clever and I don't think given the number of reviews at this point that it's a spoiler to say that she's actually dreaming the whole thing while on a ventilator. Her rehab and recovery are complicated in part by the dreams she continues to have and there's a lengthy explanation of the dreams of others. Then there's the issue of her mother, who is in a care facility due to dementia. I felt for Finn who as a physician was struggling not only with hie patients but also with his guilt about and pain for Diana. As always with Picoult, she has taken a horrible things- COVID- and good characters to write what will no doubt speak to many. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. It's an interesting read.

Jodi Picoult has written another great novel, made for book clubs, open discussion, and thought provoking reflection. Is it my favorite novel by her? Probably not. I'm not sure it's the most memorable either. But it's still pretty good. If you're a long time fan of Picoult, like me, you won't be disappointed!

Thank you Netgalley and RHPG Ballantine for providing me an arc in exchange for an honest review.

My Review:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/ 5 stars

This contemporary fiction by Jodi Picoult is gripping from the get-go. It is March 2020, right when Covid -19 was just starting to surge in the world. Diana O’Toole is at her dream job at Sothebys, living with her surgery resident boyfriend Finn, and on track to getting engaged on their trip to the Galapagos. Until the Virus seems to take over and Finn is unable to leave on vacation as the hospital is surging with cases. He insists she goes alone and enjoy the time in the sun and not waste their nonrefundable tickets. She ends up going and quickly realises the true meaning of quarantine: the small island barely has any phone service, her hotel/town is closed, and the ferry is shut down. She is stranded and there is no way home - pushing her to befriend locals like Beatriz and her father, Gabriel. She quickly realises that what she thought she wanted in her life is not what she truly wants - and that there is more to life than just plans.

This has been one of my favorite reads this year. All of the details about COVID patients and the distress of health workers in 2020 really hit home. Also the story shifts into something completely different than what you expect. At first heartbreaking and disappointing, it weaves into a much bigger picture that is much more profound. Loved it!

Thank you to Ballantine Books / Randomhouse & Netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

Diana is pleased with her life but when Covid hits, everything changes.⁣
⁣
I won't say too much about this book except that I had it for a long time and kept putting it off because I wasn't sure if I was ready for a pandemic related book. Like most, I have lost family members to Covid so details in this book were particularly hard to read without getting teary. I will say that as hard as it was to get through, I am really glad I read it. It has been a long time since I've read a Jodi Picoult book and her manner of pulling you into the story so emotionally hasn't changed a bit. I was drained by the end of the story but in a way that only an amazing writer can achieve.

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.