The pandemic has created unprecedented levels of anxiety and sadness across the globe, and I don’t think anyone could have written a book that tackles this so raw and beautifully other than Jodi Picoult. In general, I have not been eager to revisit those early quarantine days in any form of media, but Wish You Were Here was unputdownable.
Diana, to put it in two words, is ON TRACK. She has the job, the looming engagement to a dreamy doctor, the first bucket list vacation planned. Her entire life has been meticulously planned out and now she’s living it. She has just closed a major client at work and is heading off to the Galápagos Islands where, she knows, the proposal is coming. Then, her boyfriend tells her he can’t leave the city. While only 19 known cases of COVID currently exist in the city, he cannot leave on vacation. With his encouragement, Diana ventures on their trip alone and ends up on the island much longer than anticipated due to travel restrictions.
Wish You Were Here humanizes and reminds us of all the ups and downs of the past 15 months-stress, despair, sense of community, loss, family, love. As always, Picoult crafts such a beautiful story with a stunning twist that had me floored. I am so grateful I have been able to adore her works for so many years now, starting way back when I was just a lost kid in middle school. This one is in my top 4 for sure-right there with 19 Minutes, Leaving Time and The Storyteller.

I received an ARC of #WishYouWereHere courtesy of #NetGalley and #PenguinRandomHouse in exchange for an honest review.

This review will also be featured on my Bookstagram @aksbookbites on pub day

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the advance copy. Jodi Picoult never fails to come up with scenarios that make me think. This wasn’t her typical moral/legal dilemma plot - this plot is immersed in Covid in a real way. In the first half of the book I liked the Galapagos setting and the island exploration while Diane was isolated. The second half had more impact and I could relate to how surreal things seemed. People dealing with recovery and grief are still suspended in that surreal mindset. This novel shows the medical perspective as well as the survivor's experience. I appreciate the author’s note discussing her own pandemic journey and the inspiration for this novel. Thank you for publishing this in record time while people are needing the support that relevant fiction can provide, as a way to cope and recover with empathy and compassion.
I recommend this book.

I stopped everything I was reading when I got sent this book! I adore @jodipicoult and I could not be more excited to receive this book, and how perfect that book 200 of the year is by one of my favorite authors.
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This book takes place during the COVID-19 pandemic and it is inevitable that books will include this vital piece of time in our lives. I wasn’t sure I was ready for it but Picoilt’s gorgeous writing had me hooked, as she always does. It’s not a gimmick it’s part of the fabric or our lives wether we like it or not.
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Diana has her life perfectly planned. Married by 30, have kids, move to the suburbs and get promoted at Sotheby’s. Everything is on track. She is this close to her promotion, and spied a ring box, knowing her Dr. boyfriend will propose in the Galapagos, just in time for her big birthday.
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Then a little known virus takes over. Finn tells her she should still go on vacation but he can’t leave the hospital. She decides to go but ends up stuck on an island where everything is closed down and very little WiFi to communicate back home. Diana begins to question all of her best laid Plans.
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It’s so fitting that this is book 200 for me. I started my bookstagram because of the pandemic and for this to be the book about the pandemic really hits home. I feel it’s safe to say we all came out changed after the pandemic. What hits home even more is this quote.
“We’re pushing through uncertainty even when we can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.” Every single day it may have seemed like Groundhog’s Day. We may not have been able to see the light at the end of the tunnel and there was so much uncertainty but little by little life is getting back to normal with a new perspective for all that we love and cherish. I have never been more thankful for the family time we had during the pandemic.
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Tell me did your reading change during pandemic? I have never read so much in my entire life!

Thank you to @penguinrandomhouse for an arc of this wonderful book.
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I'm well aware that this is going to be a divisive book and so many people are going to hate it simply for the fact that it's written about COVID and the 2020 pandemic, but boy, is it GOOD.

Jodi Picoult has written a true literary masterpiece chronicling the Coronavirus in real time, in a fictional storyline. I got so swept up into these characters emotionally, that I could not physically put the book down. It literally broke my heart at times to read, but it was so well done.

In this novel, Picoult's story starts on 3/12/20 the day after Broadway theatres have shutdown, and the protagonist and her boyfriend are planning a trip to the Galapagos the next day, but since he is an ER doctor he is unable to go, he must remain on the frontlines, and Diana goes alone....where she experiences a whole new lifestyle, and meets and connects with a family that I just simply loved and wanted to wrap my arms around.

And ofcourse, it wouldn't be a Jodi Picoult novel if there wasn't a mind-blowing twist, and let me tell you, it's a doozy. My heart is broken, my heart is full, my heart is just a little all over the place. She has truly outdone herself here; I can't imagine how tough and painful this was to physically write and put the words to paper. All the praise to her. What a powerful, truly life impacting story of resilience, that I think so many people are going to connect with deeply.

Thank you to Ballantine for my advanced copy!

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Jodi Picoult has written such a perfect book about such a completely imperfect and messed up time. But I am. Because it seems impossible that she could have already done the work that she obviously did to make it real and true and achingly sad and beautifully uplifting at the same time. It’s a gorgeous book. It’s sad and smart and lovely and so so so real.

I loved it like I love all of her books, but with something a bit more personal. 💜💜💜💜💜📚

I have read every one of Jodi Picoult's book and was so excited to read this one that I didn't even read what it was about. Considering the past year and a half, this book should come with a trigger warning for anyone who has pandemic PTSD. I was committed to finishing it but found that in certain sections I had to skim extensively or just pass over (i.e., the emails recounting Finn's medical experiences in NYC during Covid). If you can get past the Covid theme (and I get it if you can't), this novel has all the wonderful Jodi Picoult trademarks from characters you really enjoy to a twist that has you going "OMG". So I highly recommend this but with a caveat that for some it might be just too soon to read about the pandemic.

Thanks to NetGalley for my ARC of this book. I devoured it over a weekend and couldn’t put it down. I am a devoted Picoult fan and this book typifies why I continue to wait — very impatiently most years for a new world to fall into from her writing.

In Wish You Were Here, the pandemic year is captured through Diana’s story. The first of the “pandemic” novels that try to describe life in 2020 — from the POV as the novel opens of a woman stranded in the Galápagos Islands after she goes on vacation without her resident doctor boyfriend can’t leave the NY hospitals as the coronavirus starts to take over the city. I do not want to give away any spoilers, as I had my “OH” moment taken away by a review I glanced at before reading this — so carve out a day or two, This ride is soooo worth it and as it jumps through the last pandemic year - capturing it for readers in the future, but also for us that were there. Before the memory begins to fade, a moment to remember.

What happens when you have a plan for your life and your plan gets derailed by a pandemic? Diana and her boyfriend, Finn, are planning a trip to the Galapagos, but when Covid rears its head, he tells her to go by herself. Her vacation goes awry from the start but she manages to make it all work. Or does she? Once again, Jodi brings current events into her novel but if you're not ready to read a book about Covid, you might want to wait a while before reading this one..