Dianna has her life in order and is working the plan. She has a job she enjoys with an art auction company and she lives with her partner Finn, who is a resident at a nearby hospital. In fact, Dianna just found an engagement ring hidden in Finn's dresser drawer, so she suspects he is planning to propose to her on their upcoming trip to the Galapagos Islands near Ecuador. They've heard about the new coronavirus that is making people sick, but it's not really very widespread in the U.S. so they figure their trip will go off as planned. However by the day before they leave, it's become very clear that Finn cannot leave the hospital and Dianna must decide whether to go without him or stay home and lose all the money they paid for the reservations.

Jodi Picoult has hit another home run with this rumination on how our predictable lives can be upended in a matter of moments. Ms. Picoult has a way of presenting a reader with the kind of dilemma that doesn't have a clear answer - the kind of question that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. I always learn new things from a Jodi Picoult novel, and in this case I learned a great deal about the art world and I learned that the Galapagos Islands need to be on my bucket list. I like to bookmark the parts of a book that I want to go back and read again, and I found myself bookmarking almost every second or third page of this book.

There was one point in the book when I quite literally gasped out loud, and if you've read it, you know when that was. I commend Ms. Picoult for her ingeniousness because I did not see that coming at all. In fact, I'm having a hard time writing a review without spoilers, so here come the spoilers.

WARNING: SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
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Dianna decides to go to the Galapagos without Finn, partly because he urged her to go, saying he would be at the hospital so much that it wouldn't matter if she was at home or not, and partly because she really didn't want to risk losing what they paid in advance. As she arrives on the island of Isabel, the driver of the boat delivering her there informs her that the island is closing for two weeks because of Covid, and he offers her a chance to go back. She chooses to stay, not knowing how to speak the language or what to expect, but certainly not expecting to find her hotel shut down and nowhere to stay. A kind older lady who calls herself Abuela takes Dianna in, gives her a place to stay and looks after her. Dianna meets Gabriel and his daughter Beatrix, who are related to Abuela, and the initial mutual dislike between Dianna and Gabriel reads a little like a cheesy romance novel, but that quickly passes and they begin to spend a lot of time together as Gabe promises to show her the beauty of "his" Isabel. Dianna also spends a lot of time getting to know the troubled Beatrix and teaching her about art, and mostly about how art is all around us if we just take the time to look.

Meanwhile, Dianna is communicating with Finn via postcards that Beatrix takes to the supply boat for her to be mailed, and Finn is emailing Dianna with daily updates and regret that he sent her on the trip alone. Dianna rarely gets the emails because her cell service is terrible on the island. Two weeks turns into three months with no end in sight.

Dianna's relationship with Gabriel takes another turn that leaves her wondering if she could leave her life in New York behind and just stay on Isabel forever. On a beautiful day swimming in the ocean with Gabe, Dianna begins to drown, and when she wakes up she is in a hospital bed in NYC. I literally gasped when I realized that the whole Isabel Island adventure must have been some kind of dream.

Dianna has a long way to go in her healing, because she has had Covid and been unconscious for a very long time. As she recovers, she begins to research the cause of such vivid "dreams" as the one she had. It was so real to her she has great difficulty believing it was a dream. And yet the experiences she had in the dream have changed her into a different version of herself. Internet research reveals that many of the details and the places that Dianna dreamed about are real, but she couldn't find a trace of any of the people she met in the dream. The only explanation is that these details were things she had seen and read about while planning the trip.

I loved the ending and the possibilities it presented! I wish I could read about what happened to Dianna next, but maybe that's best left to the reader's imagination.

Every time I think Jodi Picoult cannot get any better she exceeds my expectations once again. Which she has done with this amazing story that I absorbed into my being and let flow over me like a slow moving falls.
Ms. Picoult is a thinking person's writer in that she tackles head on subjects that are controversial or in the news and no matter your personal perspective she manages to make me cognizant of ideas I never thought of before and I look at things differently.

COVID-19 is the subject matter of her latest and I was amazed at this narrative and how it evolves as the pandemic spreads. Severe illness affects all of those around the infected one, not just the patient, and all of us react differently. But can a pandemic, such as this, teach us about life, living and love? This book will open up a whole new trail of understanding, acceptance and change when we travel a road we didn't expect to take.

Don't miss this one! November, 2021!

*****Coming out November 30, 2021*****

Thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and Netgalley I was asked to be an early reviewer!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Jodi Picoult writes a heartfelt and meaningful book set at the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic. This book captures the lives from many different perspectives of what it was like living through the unknown, unexpected and unimaginable. But is it what it seems? Jodi Picoult does it again with writing another 5 star book that keeps you guessing until the end. A book that keeps you thinking about it long after it’s finished! Definitely one to add to your TBR list. A great book club pick!

Not yet thirty, Diana O’Toole has had her life planned out, she’s already moving up in her profession, working at Sotheby’s, and her personal life has been fairly smooth sailing, as well. Her boyfriend is a surgical resident, and they are preparing to leave soon for Galapagos. She will celebrate her 30th birthday while on this lovely vacation away from the city, spent with the man she loves, and is pretty sure he will propose. Everything seems to be falling into place just as she’d planned.

And then - COVID. Her boyfriend Finn is needed as a health care worker, but insists that she go anyway, their trip is non-refundable, and there’s no reason why she shouldn’t go even if they both can’t go. At least she can get away from all of this for a while. When her plane lands she finds out that her luggage is lost, and when the boat taking her to the island arrives, she realizes it may be the last boat there. And back.

I’ve read several books by Jodi Picoult, but nowhere near all of them - she’s a very prolific writer. Until I read this, I would have said that her The Storyteller was the one that pulled me in completely. But this tops that one for me, there were so many beautiful moments in this, so many ones we could all relate to - unless we’ve ignored the news for the last year and a half. So many that gave me hope.

There’s so much more to this story, the connection she makes with the place and the people, along with the struggles she faces in a place where she doesn’t speak the language, and the restrictions. But she allows herself to open up to the limited possibilities available and celebrates the beauty found in this lovely place and in the people. The struggle with feeling isolated, even as we have all struggled during this isolation, that isolation, that struggle is also what connects us.

While the pandemic is what propels this story to the story that follows, it is so much more than just a pandemic story. It is a story of love in all its many forms, finding the people and places that call you home, and recognizing the beauty in answering that call.

Pub Date: 30 Nov 2021

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine / Ballantine Books

hi! I LOVED this book!!
Thank you!
I wrote about it for THRIVE GLOBAL
https://thriveglobal.com/stories/sizzling-summer-reads-feel-all-your-feelings/

Okay so this book started off extremely slow for me and I even considered not finishing it but after reading the reviews on Goodreads, I decided to power through and it did not disappoint. The twist in the book wrecked me. But I think it definitely ended the way it was supposed to.

Jodi Picoult does it again. This book is propulsive, vivid, witty, and extremely relevant. Picoult has never been afraid to write about tough topics (the Holocaust, religion, sexual assault, suicide, etc.). Recently, many of her books have covered current events, so I was not surprised that she is at the forefront of tackling the topic of the recent pandemic.

She intersperses the story with news from New York City, a COVID hotspot, and the remote Galapagos Islands, home of Darwin's finches and the theory of evolution. She paints a brilliant image of the picturesque and secluded islands, as well as the chaos and terror of COVID in New York City. The characters are likable and relatable and you can't help but fall in love with them.

Finally. The newest book by one of my favorite authors, and I am dying to talk about! Wish You Were Here takes place in the early days of the Covid pandemic began…. and when I saw that I immediately did not want to read it.

But I’m glad I did because it wasn’t what I expected at all. I can’t say too much without spoiling, but I highly recommend giving this a chance. To escape NY on the day the pandemic began to be stranded on a tropical island in the Galapagos... be still my heart. Thank you @netgalley for the advance copy.

I finished reading Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult a few days ago and needed to take some time to wrap my head around all that happens in the novel and let it settle. This is a fascinating novel, taking you down one road and then abruptly shifting from what you believed was happening to something completely different.

Diana O'Toole is happily living her life according to her master plan and is ready for the next step. She and her partner Finn, a surgical resident are preparing to take a trip to the Galapagos Islands, one they had planned and saved for that was special to them. Just before they were preparing to leave, Covid hits and Finn can't leave the hospital but asks that Diana go by herself and she takes off without him.

The first half of the book details her wonderful trip, the people she meets, the rythym of life on the island and how happy she is...which is making her question her entire life plan and her life in New York. But when she can finally return from Galapagos, she returns to a far different reality.

This novel will make you see a different side of the Covid virus and pandemic, how it affects the health care workers, the patients and how it continues to affect them. I was fortunate not to get the virus, but I watched my daughter and two young granddaughters suffer with it. My heart goes out to those who suffered and to those who lost family members, friends and neighbors to this insidious disease. Wish You Were Here is the second Covid novel I've read and it's most likely the best one I'll ever read. Jodi Picoult has done a marvelous job of portraying the feelings of those who treat patients and of the patients themselves. She is a master at portraying people as they really are and has done an incredible job with this novel.

Thank you to the author, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I have read a lot of Ms. Picoult's work, with "Leaving Time" being my favorite... when I saw that her newest is set during the Pandemic, I was very interested & so pleased to get a chance to read it. It's almost still "too much" but a very needed story. Staring in March 2020, we have Diana & Finn, who are New Yorker's about to go on a dream vacay to the Galapagos... but then Finn, who's an MD can't go (cuz ya know) and Diana goes w/o him... to a remote island where she is trapped. Both the story and research done will take the reader on a trip through what we have all collectively experienced, would like to forget, and never will. Moving and so important, it's my first "COVID book", and I am so pleased to have taken the journey with Jodi Picoult! ALL THE STARS & highly recommend. My thanks to the author, publisher & Net Galley for the ARC.

In 2016, 2018, and 2020 I read and reviewed Jodi Picoult’s Small Great Things, Spark of Light, and The Book of Two Ways, with each earning five stars (and two of the three getting my “You HAVE to read this book”). I also noted that “when a friend and former library co-worker basically sniffed her disapproval when I told her I liked Jodi Picoult’s books, our friendship was changed forever.” I worked for several years in public libraries and tried not to be judgmental of people’s reading preferences, or to let the fact that someone thought Danielle Steel wrote great literature to negatively impact my opinion of them. But really, I don’t get it. I know JP is writing for a mass market – and sometimes her resolutions might be just a bit too neat for snooty readers. But I’ll admit right up front, I am a sucker for a well-plotted story that makes me think about a social issue or two along the way. So, here we are, a year early for her biannual novel release...and what other issue could she tackle if not the pandemic and COVID-19? Wish You Were Here is Picoult’s latest, and it’s...complicated.

The topic might turn some people off, as in “I am living this nightmare, I want to escape COVID when I read.” Better look elsewhere then, because this story captures both the pure terror of the medical issues as well as the resulting emotional toll on individuals and relationships. The story begins on March 12, 2020, the day after Broadway theaters shut down. Diana O’Toole and her ER doctor boyfriend are just about to leave on their dream trip to The Galapagos...what could possibly go wrong? Of course he can’t go, he’s a freaking ER doc! Diana is devastated, so when he tells her to go ahead and go without him, she does...and she is dumped right into a completely new way of being, immersed in life with a family that causes her to reevaluate everything.

Of course, there is a twist. And this one is huge! I so hope reviewers are careful about spoilers, because I think the experience of reading this book would be completely different for a reader who knows what’s coming.

I have found myself recently thinking about the written history of this pandemic, and whether people will get the way EVERYTHING changed in 2020. Ms. Picoult has done an amazing job capturing the horror, confusion, and shared experience of millions of people, when she notes “There is a profound difference between knowing your situation is temporary and not knowing what’s coming next.” I’m not sure whether the fact that the release of this is not until November 2021 will have an impact, given that it seems so many people are so over the whole thing, and are claiming “it’s over! Take off your masks!” etc. (for the record, I don’t think it is over and I’m still wearing a mask in Summer 2021, despite the “opening up” of things in California.

Impossible to avoid spoilers if I get into any details, so I will just say it has the excellent character development Picoult fans expect. It’s also emotionally wrenching and, although I wasn’t wild about the ending, I am not sure how she might have done it differently and still have us care so much about the people we met along the way. Diana learns that “...trying to figure out what happened to me isn’t important. It’s what I do with what I’ve learned that counts.”

Picoult does a great job presenting the daily reality of living through this past pandemic year. I recommend this book highly, and look forward to re-reading it in a year or so when (I hope) the pandemic truly is under control. Thanks to Random House/Ballantine and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for this honest review. Five stars.

This is far from the first time I thought this, but: how smart, how wise, how talented, is Jodi Picoult?

I’m excited if I wear shoes during the pandemic; she writes a novel that brings so much of the pandemic in focus.

I found the book really hard to read, and am so glad I read it. As JP often does, she writes about thoughts and experiences I don’t even know are mine until she describes them.

The book is painful, fearful, joyful, uplifting and occasionally hilarious. (Could Rodney get his own book?)

What if what’s perfect and what’s planned isn’t a perfect plan for you? How do you know?

What if our loved ones are more complicated than we know?

This is a perfect book club book. To vastly understate, it is quite a read.

“Just” the author’s note made me cry.

#WishYouWereHere #NetGalley

I love a Jodi Picoult book. And this is the first book I have read that was around the pandemic. I thought it was one of the best books she has written. It grabbed me from the beginning. A solid five stars for this wonderful novel.

An amazing book to encapsulate the feelings and thoughts of the people who have experience COVID in one way or another. The peak of the book was unexpected for me and I couldn’t believe what happened. Definitely a worthy read in my opinion.

Until today, I would have told anyone that SMALL GREAT THINGS was the best book by Jodi Picoult. Today I finished reading WISH YOU WERE HERE and now this is my favorite Picoult book. What an amazing read. I literally could not put this down and read it in one sitting. The "twist" in the middle was amazing (no spoilers) and I loved how the novel began on March 13, 2020. I also vividly remember that day. I will absolutely be recommending this book to everyone. Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for publishing Jodi Picoult's "surprise" novel. 10 stars!!

I received a free advanced ebook of <i>Wish You Were Here</i> from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Picoult's latest is certainly unexpected. Diana has an exciting and PLANNED life - she works for Sotheby's in NYC with a clear upward path; she's almost engaged to Finn, a medical resident who shares her goals; and she had an absent mother who traveled the world as a photographer but now has early onset Alzheimer's. Finn and Diana's expected trip to the Galapagos is now uncertain as the world shuts down and Covid counts take over the evening news.

At first when I realized that Covid was a dominant thread through this novel I almost set it aside. My world may be opening but the threat continues. In the hands of a lesser writer the pandemic could be used too fleetingly or too oppressively. Here Picoult stresses the overwhelming uncertainty but with a foundation of the human need to connect to others. That humanity is the core of this novel.

Diana visits the Galapagos but without the amenities, including her suitcase. Here Diana is suddenly adrift as covid quarantine shuts everything down and she has no place to stay, no cell phone signal, and no ability to speak Spanish. Meanwhile Finn is overwhelmed working in a NYC hospital as shortages and patient death count increase while treatments and hope are severely limited. So much for a PLANNED life.

#WishYouWereHere #NetGalley

Was lucky enough to be given an ARC of this book ! Love when I get to read my favorite author's early ! This is probably one of the best books by her in a few years, in my opinion ! Timely as it discusses the pandemic, but it touches on so many other issues and emotions ! It's a real tug on the heart strings ! It is really hard to say what the book is about without giving too much away so I am not going to do that ! This is the kind of book you need to read without really knowing what it is about so you get the full effect and weight of the story ! Enjoyed this very much !

Worthy of dropping everything I was doing when I received notification that Jodi Picoult has a new ARC title on Net Galley!. This is a beautifully written story about Diana, a Sotheby’s employee, who has a dream vacation coming up with her boyfriend, Finn when COVID hits NYC..
Did I feel like reading a book about Covid?Heck no. Was it amazing? YES!! Typical for Jodi Picoult, Wish you Were Here is an absolute winner! All the feels that come along with this one will have you flipping through the pages at lightning speed.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ballentine Books for this ARC. I have been a long time fan of Jodi Picoult and have never missed a book, so imagine my excitement at being given an advance copy of her latest novel, Wish You Were Here. I literally dropped everything I was doing to read this, and found I couldn't put it down...yes, takeout for dinner, no time to cook. I love the depth of research she does when focusing on a particular subject and she does this in a timely manner to write about the COVID 19 Pandemic. Providing the doctor's perspective on how difficult and traumatizing it is to treat patients undergoing treatment is by itself worthy. She then combines that with the equally descriptive storyline of someone who has undergone intubation and induced coma and the difficult road to recovery. As usual, Picoult finds a way to thread the important information that is the focus of the book, in this case, the pandemic, along with her ability to tell a story that is deeply touching. Highly recommend reading this new Picoult novel.

If this book is any indication, Jodi Picoult made excellent use of her 2020 COVID lockdown! The book isn't like anything the author has written before. There appears to be no really controversial subject, and no multiple points of view or rotating chapter voices. In fact, the story begins in a normal fashion - Diana O'Toole and her doctor beau are planning a getaway to the Galapagos Islands, where she believes he will propose. Just as they are ready to depart, COVID hits New York City and he cannot go. He convinces Diana to go without him, as the trip is nonrefundable. She reluctantly agrees, and travels to the place where Darwin's theory of natural selection began. So begins this fascinating, surprising, unique, and somewhat mystical story. The writing is strong and the characters vivid and believable. I highly recommend this unusual book. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine Books for providing an ARC.