Wish You Were Here, by Jodi Picoult (2021)
This novel focuses on the Covid-19 pandemic. Diana O’Toole is a young art specialist on the verge of her 30thbirthday. She and her surgical resident boyfriend have plans to vacation on the Galápagos islands to celebrate her milestone birthday. Days before they are to leave, Covid-19 shuts down the United States and her boyfriend must remain at the hospital to help with the influx of Covid patients. He convinces Diana to still take the vacation as it is already paid for.
Diana arrives at the Galápagos, only to find that the island will be shut down for two weeks. The hotel where she was to stay is closed down and the spotty internet connection is spotty. Diana is isolated from the rest of the world and is unable to contact her boyfriend. An old woman befriends her and provides her with food and a small apartment, the had formerly belonged to her adult son.
Being away from all this is familiar to her, Diana begins to re-evaluate her life and her relationship with her boyfriend. Why doesn’t he try to contact her? Why did he convince her to go on their trip alone?
The author also researched Covid-19, and the second half of the book explores how people who contracted the virus and survived coped. [Spoiler Alert: Many patients who contracted Covid experienced hallucinations. In this novel, Diana’s trip and lengthy stay in the Galápagos islands was a hallucination. What seemed like a lengthy stay on the islands, was just a few days. Days she spent in the hospital with a very serious case of Covid. The author interviewed many patients who experienced such hallucinations while suffering from Covid and Diana’s story is based on these interviews.]
This was an easy and fun book.
Read: November 8, 2022
4 Stars
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