Congrats Jodi
on the release of
Wish You Were Here!
Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult
Women's Domestic Life Fiction, 336 pages
Published November 30, 2021 by Ballantine Books
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author comes a deeply moving novel about the resilience of the human spirit in a moment of crisis.
Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos—days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time.
But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes.
Almost immediately, Diana’s dream vacation goes awry. The whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders reopen. Completely isolated, she must venture beyond her comfort zone. Slowly, she carves out a connection with a local family when a teenager with a secret opens up to Diana, despite her father’s suspicion of outsiders.
Diana finds herself examining her relationships, her choices, and herself—and wondering if when she goes home, she too will have evolved into someone completely different.
My thoughts about Wish You Were Here ~~
(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first lines.)
First lines—"March 13, 2020. When I was six years old, I painted a corner of the sky."
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.
I received an ARC of Wish You Were Here vis NetGalley and this is my honest opinion of the book.
About the author
Jodi Picoult is the author of twenty-six novels, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Small Great Things, A Spark of Light, Leaving Time, The Storyteller, Lone Wolf, Between the Lines, Sing You Home, House Rules, Handle with Care, Change of Heart, Nineteen Minutes, and My Sister’s Keeper. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children. ~ Goodreads
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