Review

This novel by Jodi Picoult, her 27th, is among the first to be built around the COVID-19 pandemic. It starts out in March of 2020 in New York right at the time of the COVID breakout when everything begins to change. The protagonist, Diana O'Toole, works as an art auction specialist at Sotheby's and she lives with her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident at Presbyterian Hospital in NYC. They are planning to get married and have booked a trip to the Galapagos. Their plans come crashing down when COVID hits and Finn is needed full time at the hospital, but he urges her to go without him. Reluctantly, she goes. The virus has now touched the entire world and, after arriving in the town of Puerto Villamil on the island of Isabela in the Galapagos, the island is quarantined and she is stranded there. Now alone, and with all the island closed down, she connects with a local family and spends her time exploring the island and getting involved with the affairs of the family. Although she has problems getting messages out, she does receive a continuing stream of emails from Finn telling her about the impact of COVID in New York as well as his own difficult experiences as a doctor attempting to save the lives of people with the virus. Just as you are getting drawn into her developing life on Isabela, there is a major turn awaiting readers, and I'm not going to be a spoiler. You must read the Author's Note where Picoult explains just how this book materialized. As an asthmatic, she took quarantine very seriously and said, "I can count on one hand the number of times I've left my house in the past year." Wish You Were Here is an entertaining and provocative read. How does a trauma or a near-death experience change us? When you are alone or isolated and away from the traffic of life and have the time and quiet to think, how does this impact us? How will COVID alter our lives?

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