Diana O'Toole and her partner Finn live happily together with their lives mapped out for a golden future. They have booked a fantastic holiday in the Galapagos and everything is all set for them to go to the airport and fly away to paradise. It can’t come too quickly for them both. They have poured through information about the islands and this has made them extra excited and ready for it all to begin.
It is 2020, right at the beginning of Covid19 pandemic. Diana is twenty-nine, and she has the notion that on this holiday Finn will propose to her, she will obviously accept, and hey presto, their lives together and their plans for the future will be put into action. Finn is well appointed in his work as a hospital surgeon and Diane is at the pinnacle of her working life at Sotheby’s in New York City. She has just snaffled up a rich, new female client with a famous piece of art that she wants to put up for auction, This sale will almost certainly earn Diana a huge promotion which will give her the honour of being an Art Specialist, not just an assistant. She is so excited and ready to take steps that will make her secure and living her best life.
Finn arrives home with unwelcome news. He has been asked to cancel his leave and step up to help at the hospital. Covid19 has struck the city hard and the death statistics are growing as fast as lightening. He will be on the frontline trying to save dangerously ill patients who need intubation or oxygen to help them breathe. He will be fighting a battle against the deadly pandemic, unknowing what will happen next. He must honour the promise all doctors take, the Hippocratic Oath, and help his colleagues fight the war against the virus. It is his duty and he cannot ignore what is happening. He certainly cannot go off on holiday at this time. He persuades Diana to travel on her own or else they will lose all the money they saved so hard for. Reluctantly she agrees to travel alone, knowing he wants to keep her safe.
After a long tiring flight she arrives on the Galapagos and travels onwards to the island they have chosen together, Santa Cruz, by ferry. When she arrives at her final destination she finds that their hotel is closed down. Worse still, everything is frozen in time and there are also curfews. She is trapped on this beautiful island and there are no other tourists. The pandemic has caused a total lockdown. She cannot travel home or to anywhere else, she has next to no Wi-Fi and cannot get a message back to New York City to let Finn know that she is safe. She settles down to make the most of her ‘holiday’. She gradually makes friends with the locals who are keen to help her and she loves the island, its wildlife and beauty. Her story continues in Part One and is also directly linked to Part Two. You just have to read this story to see the brilliance of Jodi Picoult and have a great time reading about Diana.
Jodi Picoult is a force to be reckoned with. Not only is she a superb storyteller, but the content of her storyboards is intelligent, charismatic and irresistible. Her research is far reaching, meticulous and totally fascinating, adding huge authenticity to her writing. I always learn something new when I read her latest novel and I am always hooked from her first few chapters and right up to the ending of her book. The development of her characters is spellbinding. She puts them into situations that concern modern issues that matter to everyone, so you are easily able to relate to what is happening. I love her stories unconditionally. There are enormous shocks to come within this novel.
I received a complimentary copy of this novel from publisher Hodder & Stoughton through my membership of NetGalley. It was sent in return for an honest and unbiased review and I would like to thank them for my copy of this excellent novel. Although it is hard to read at times, because of the content, it still pulls you in and it is so rewarding and full of hope for the future. It’s a well-deserved 4.5* review from me.

Life is good for Diana, an art specialist at Sotheby's, and Finn, a surgical resident at a New York hospital - they're about to fly to the Galápagos Islands where Diana will celebrate her 30th birthday - and where she's pretty sure Finn intends to propose.

But it's March 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic is about to hit. Finn, as a hospital doctor, is needed on the frontline but urges Diana to travel without him. She arrives on Isabela, though, to find an island that is basically closed, with no hotel room, imminent way of getting home - or, with internet that's at best intermittent, of easily contacting Finn.

However there are worse places to wait out a pandemic, as Diana explores the incredibly beautiful island and becomes drawn into the lives of the people she meets, particularly troubled teenager Beatriz and her father Gabriel, and reflects on her own life up to this point.

Interspersed and contrasting starkly with Diana's narrative are emails from Finn, horrifying in their unrelenting depiction of life and death on the frontline. This book is steeped in the world of Covid, and prospective readers should be aware of that - it will not be for everyone. Nevertheless both the harsh realities of the hospital and the outside lockdown world of furlough, flour shortages and two-metre distancing are brilliantly rendered.

The story takes an unexpected turn around the halfway point, upending what we thought we knew.

Few of the reviews I've read have touched much on Diana's relationship with her mother Hannah, an acclaimed photographer now living with dementia, but I found this a very thought-provoking and ultimately curiously satisfying part of the story. Art is another theme, including the work of Toulouse-Lautrec (on this note, I'm not quite sure of the point of having a character who so closely resembled Yoko Ono that she was basically the same person with a different name).

Overall, a captivating if, at times, distressing read which has left me hankering after a trip to the Galápagos Islands.

I loved this book... We start with Diana and her partner Finn getting ready to go on holiday to Galapagos when COVID19 starts to infect Americans. Finn works in a hospital so can't leave but suggests Diana goes alone. As she arrives, the island is going into lock down and she finds herself stranded in paradise... no money, no phone, no Internet and no hotel! But this is only the start of the journey for Diana. Her return triggers a shift in her that changes everything. It also makes us ask important questions about what reality is and what do we really need when its all said and done.

I literally couldn't put this book down. The COVID19 element of the story is sad but fascinating. Diana and Finn are great characters and we meet others along the way who I just fell in love with. I cared about all of them and wanted them all to be OK.... but with the virus nothing is guaranteed. Its a sobering reminder about the severity of COVID and its far reaching consequences... including those we don't know about yet.

This is a fantastic book. It has illness, death and tragedy but it also has love, hope and strength.

I received a copy of this book via Netgalley from the publisher with no promise of a favourable review.

This is surprisingly the third novel that I've read set during lockdown 2020, and it was by far the best. It was a very different novel for Jodi Picoult, it's not the same court room drama with a moral issue at the centre. Instead it looks at how we can spend all our lives chasing a dream, to realise that we didn't really want that dream after all and then having the bravery to change course part way through our lives.

As with all Jodi Picoult novels there was a twist, it came in the middle of the book and when it happened I wasn't sure that I liked it. It felt like a cheap shot and I was tempted to throw the book across the room in disgust. But I didn't, I kept on reading. And the twist got expanded on and explained, and I changed my mind. Now that I've read the rest of the book and I've read the author notes the twist makes perfect sense.

I studied art history as part of my degree so that side of the novel was really enjoyable to me, I even started googling to see if the painting described existed and whether it was owned by Yoko Ono.

This could have been quite preachy, I suppose all of the Picoult's books have the prospect of being preachy given their subject matters, but it wasn't. It showed just how scary covid was to those on the front line and to be honest, if we hadn't just lived through it I'm not sure I'd have believed that this could have happened in such a way. I also thought it was very good at portraying the uncertainty of March - one day we're thinking it's not going to be that bad, the next day the world came to a standstill. I remember thinking part way through that people should be given this to read in 20 years time as a history lesson of just how terrifying our past 18 months have been.

Very weirdly, I was really excited to get to the author notes, I wanted to read more about what Picoult had learned and the obviously great amount of research that had gone into this novel in what must have been a very short period of time.

Unbelievably this is my first Jodi Picoult book but it definitely won’t be my last. Loved characters and couldn’t get the story out of my head.

I am bit hesitant of reading books about COVID-19 but Jodi Picoult’s latest offering Wish you were here is a beautifully written, poignant story that we can all relate too.
Diana is an Art auctioneer and just about to get a promotion. She is also about to go to the Galapagos for a two-week vacation with her Surgeon boyfriend Finn. She thinks that is about to propose. When Covid -19 hits in New York. Instead of cancelling the trip. Finn persuades her to go to the Island on her own. They think that there is nothing to worry about and she will be back in two weeks. But when she gets there the whole island shuts down and is unable to leave the island. So, she explores the island and meets some of the locals which she starts making a connection with. Many weeks go by and until and accident on the island, she realises she is back to New York, and she is on ventilator in the hospital with COVID-19. She never left New York at all and has been in hospital for the last 10 days.
Wow what can I say about Jodi Picoult’s latest offering. This is a fantastic and sensitively written story of the times that we have currently experienced. The death and the loss and the regrets and what we could have done differently it we had more time. But it also shows us what it the most important in our lives. And the way forward. This is a book that will make you think and have questions after. 5 stars from me.

Wish You Were Here is Jodi Picoult at her best.

Diana O’Toole watched the car wreck that was her parent’s marriage and determined that her life would pan out differently. Now she is 29 and her life is following the plan she has set out for herself. She is an associate specialist at Sothebys and is about to land the account that is sure to guarantee her a promotion. She is due to go on the holiday of the lifetime with her boyfriend and she is pretty sure she will be coming back with an engagement ring.

Then the Covid-19 concerns begin to grow and her boyfriend Finn, a resident in a New York City hospital, tells her that she should go on the holiday without him.

Once she arrives in the Galapagos, she discovers the island is going into lockdown and she is stranded there without any knowledge of the language and nowhere to stay.

“In an effort to seem more chill than I naturally am, I have just stranded myself on an island.”

Being on the island causes Diana to reflect on the choices that have brought her to this state, and she begins to question if her plan is set in stone.

But is everything what it appears?

When I first read the blurb for Wish You Were Here I both loved and hated it. Why would I want to read a book set in the very pandemic we are living through? The more I thought about it though the more I realised that maybe it was exactly what I needed to read.

Diana’s dad died four years ago, and she has a poor relationship with her mother who now has dementia.

“I did not miss the irony of the fact that the parent I missed desperately was the one who was no longer in the world, while the parent I could take or leave was inextricably tied to me for the long haul.”

One of the many things that Picoult is adept at is being brutally honest and the quote below sums up the feelings of myself and a lot of my colleagues about the ‘clap for carers’ in the UK.

“I read that the Empire State Building will be lit up red and white this week for health care workers. We don’t give a fuck about the Empire State Building, or about people banging pots and pans about 7pm. Most of us won’t even see or hear it, because we’re in the hospital trying to save people who cannot be saved. What we want is for everyone to just wear a mask.”

Wish You Were Here has Picoult’s trademark twist. She takes a topic most of us feel we know inside out and then throws out a whole new aspect of it.

This book also has one of the best summaries I have read on how we all feel about lost time due to covid.

“These days I am thinking about loss. Because of this pandemic, everyone feels like they’ve been robbed of something, or – in the most extreme and permanent of cases – someone. A job, an engagement, a painting for auction. A graduation, a vacation, a freshman year. A grandmother, a sister, a lover. Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow – I realise that viscerally now – but that doesn’t keep us from feeling cheated when it’s yanked away.”

Wish You Were Here was an incredible book and I am so glad I chose to read it.

It's Friday the 13th and Diana is an ambitious young appraiser at Sotheby's in New York. She's about to go on a long-awaited holiday, where she knows Finn, her surgeon boyfriend, will propose and the next stage of her carefully planned life will begin.


But it is Friday the 13th of March 2020.

The new virus hits. Finn can't leave the city, and suggests she goes without him. In the Galapagos, unable to get back to her real life, Diana learns about the devastation hitting the world as she hears intermittently from her boyfriend. She's discovering a new side to herself and a new kind of life, when everything changes . . .

I received a copy of this book from the publisher Hodder and Staunton, and netgalley, in return for an honest review.

I’m a huge Jodi Picoult fan, so there’s no denying I was ridiculously excited to see this book on Netgalley, and even more excited when I was approved! I read this one as a buddy read with 5 of my pals, and we all really enjoyed it (all book reviewers and all approved on Netgalley).

There was a bit of controversy around this book before it came out, people saying they weren’t sure about reading a book based on the pandemic, which is still very much going on. And I get that, I’ve hardly been anywhere in almost 19 months, but I knew Ms JP would write it well. The book is mostly all about Diana and The Galapagos, with Covid mentioned sporadically throughout.

The book is told from the perspective of Diana, who jets off to The Galapagos alone, only to get there and find everything is closed due to the pandemic, and she is stuck. I loved the Galapagos parts of the story, the descriptions were amazing and I felt whisked away while reading. I really liked Diana, and was rooting for her character all the way through. Finn I wasn’t as fussed on, I felt Earth sorry for him with what he was going through working on the Covid wards. Jodi’s descriptions of how Finn was feeling and the people who lost their lives, it was all very real and close to home. And there was a certain point me and my pals were a bit shocked.

I won’t go into much more detail but yes read this book, then read it again, and fall in love with The Galapagos. Well done again Ms picoult.

This is one of my frist books by Jodi. Dania is a 30 year old lady who's about to make a major sale in her auction art. She had a lovely boyfriend then reality strick with the pandemic this bit was hard to read as it's so true.it hard reading about covid through this story so it brings in more to a reality than a book that you can let your mind wonder with.

4 5 stars

I love Jodi Picoult, her books always capture my imagination & make me think. For me this was a book of two halves & for the main I loved it, but there were little niggles that left me a little lost, unfortunately I can't go into these without massive, book ruining spoilers.

The characters are all brilliantly written, the exploration of covid & it's effects, both on those who have had it & society as a whole, were really well considered (the authors note is a must read). Jodi also uses this novel to explore different mother/daughter- parent/child relationships which added another dimension to an already interesting novel. As with her last book, The Book Of Two Ways, there is a lot of information/research weaved into the story, this time I felt it was done more delicately & fitted the story well.

I'm happy to say this isn't a novel about covid directly, but a novel with covid as a backdrop & tool used cleverly to expose people's vulnerability & shine a light on what is important when a crisis hits.

A great read, imaginatively constructed & well written, as you'd expect from this master.

If anybody had to write about Covid, I guess Jodi Picoult would always have been the author I most wanted to do it. Picoult has built a career handling extremely challenging topics with great sensitivity, and her latest book is no exception. It's partly an epistolary novel; the horror of the spreading coronavirus unfolding via emails from our protagonist's partner. This beautifully captures the frustration, and fear, of hospital staff faced with managing cases in the midst of the global pandemic. It's a book of two halves, exploring a variety of themes including mother/daughter relationships, our expectations of life, grief, loss and priorities. Picoult has produced a snapshot which perfectly captures the mood of the past 18 months. I found her note at the end about her lockdown experience, research and motivation for the novel enlightening.

An absolutely beautiful novel which is so relevant to everyone that has lived through the covid pandemic. We visit the Galápagos Islands with Diana O’Toole, an art specialist who has gone on holiday without her doctor fiancé. She becomes stranded on the island as the world shuts down and we follow how she copes with being isolated, away from family and everything she knows. It’s difficult to write more about the storyline without plot spoilers, but I will say that the descriptions made me need to visit the islands, and her experiences resonated. I also loved the shared references to lockdown like ‘tiger king’ and banana bread. Wonderfully written, it’s a must read from me! Thanks so much for this arc in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

I’m a MASSIVE @jodipicoult stan, I’ll read anything she writes; so when this unexpected piece of bookmail arrived from @hodderbooks I actually SQUEALED.

Not only is it a truly gorgeous proof (it has French flaps- fancy!!) it, in true Picoult fashion, has a hard hitting and interesting plot.

Diana is on track, she’s nearly 30, is about to get a promotion and in a few days she’s going on a bucket list holiday to the Galápagos where she’s certain that her boyfriend, Finn, is going to propose. Except it’s March 2020 and the pandemic has just hit NYC where Finn works as a surgical resident, he can’t possibly go to the Galápagos so he ships Diana off on her own while he stays behind.

This is only the beginning and I’m not going into any more detail for fear of ruining it for you, but this book was incredible, quite a short book but it packs a mighty punch. I was crying on the beach.

All I can say is bravo Jodi Picoult, you’ve done it again and I hope you all read it come November. It can be a little difficult on places because of Finn’s heavy involvement in the covid situation in NYC hospitals but ultimately a wonderful read.

Thank you again to Team Hodder and quite frankly, I can’t wait to see what Picoult does next.

Diana is booked to go on holiday with her boyfriend Finn when the Covid pandemic causes havoc in New York. Finn a doctor in the local hospital persuades her to go on holiday on her own as he is desperately needed in the hospital.
Arriving in the Galapagos Diana finds that her hotel and everything else in the resort is closed and she has nowhere to stay, the airport is closed and she is stranded with no WiFi and a very limited phone signal.
She is forced to look after herself until she able to get home.
This predicament forces her to reassess the choices she has made in her life so far.
I enjoyed reading Diana’s story but I found Finn’s story very sad and difficult to read.
Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I’d like to thank NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for approving me for an ARC of this book.

I actually read this as a buddy read with some of my fellow book club members. For those of you that don’t know I am a hardcore Jodi Picoult fan. I have read all of her books and own them all in hardcover. I find that I always get sucked into her stories and am left in awe of what she has written and this one was no exception.

I will admit when I heard that Jodi Picoult was writing a book set during the COVID 19 pandemic I was a bit nervous to start it. After all haven’t we all had enough of hearing about COVID 19? However, whilst this was a book about COVID it also wasn’t.

Diana was an exceptional main character. she was likeable, thoughtful and relatable. Whilst the books starts with the early onset of the pandemic we are taken away from that scene to the lovely island of Galapagos. Whilst I haven’t been I know exactly where I want to go now. The island was described beautifully, I could see it vividly in my imagination and was in awe of the incredible landscape and creatures. Diana’s life on the island was adventurous, idyllic and peaceful I could see how she slowly started to get used to that lifestyle.

Gabriel and Beatriz were a welcomed addition to the story. Their interactions with Diana were very different but the both had a profound affect on her. They almost took her under their wing and helped her survive whilst the island was on lockdown.

Then came the moment that I hadn’t anticipated, without giving too much away there will be a point where as a reader you will be gobsmacked. I couldn’t believe what I had read and had to double check it twice! It might be strange to say but I love it when a book knocks me sideways. From there I could not stop reading and found it really hard to tear myself away to do ‘adulting’.

The pandemic and it’s effects are featured highly in the story but Jodi Picoult doesn’t rehash everything we went through. Instead she gives light to some stories that we may of forgotten. The people on the front line, the physios’ the care home workers but also the survivors. It’s easy to think that once someone has had COVID that they just go back to their normal life and in most cases yes they do but there are some unlucky ones that have lasting effects. I would recommend reading the author’s notes at the end too. I know these sometimes get overlooked but it shows just how much research went into this story and the people who played a part.

As I’ve said I flew through this book as did the rest of my buddies who read with me. We all finished earlier than we planned and we all enjoyed it. Be prepared to cry, be shocked and completely blown away by Jodi Picoult’s beautiful prose.

I have read several books by this author and she never disappoints! This book was slightly different as it was written and incorporates covid! A believable storyline ( as always) and certainly good to see an author handling what we all went through with compassion

This is the 1st Book that I have read by the author and It won't be the last as I loved the author writing

If your life was going perfectly to plan, would you risk everything to change it?

Diana O'Toole's life is going perfectly to plan. At twenty-nine, she's up for promotion to her dream job as an art specialist at Sotheby's and she's about to fly to the Galapagos where she's convinced her surgeon boyfriend, Finn, is going to propose.

But then the virus hits New York City and Finn breaks the news: the hospital needs him, he has to stay. But you should still go, he insists. And reluctantly, she agrees.

Once she's in the Galapagos, the world shuts down around her, leaving Diana stranded - albeit in paradise. Completely isolated, with only intermittent news from the outside world, Diana finds herself examining everything that has brought her to this point and wondering if there's a better way to live.

But not everything is as it seems . . .


Wow this book without giving away any spoilers is going to stay with me for a long times esp as it set during the covid pandemic , I work for the nhs so can relate to Finn with certain regards to working in the health sector, I read it in a day and Loved all the characters and all the twists and turns in the book that I didn't see coming wow what an ending to this book, when I started this book that is not the ending I was forecasting but I loved it,


I am now going to hunt out from my independent bookshop all the rest of the authors books as if they are as good as this I'm going to be very happy .

This Book is out on 25th November 2021.

With thanks to Netgalley & Hodder & Stoughton for the arc of this book in exchange for this honest review.

5 out of 5

Only Jodi Piccoult could take the subject of Covid and write a fantastic book. This, as with all her books, will be an absolute classic but more so because of the topic. THANK YOU NetGalley for allowing me to read this.

*This review contains spoilers*

I'm a huge Jodi Picoult fan and I've read all of her books so when she releases a new one I don't read the synopsis anymore - I go full steam ahead having no idea what the story is about. So when I turned the first few pages I was shocked to realise that Wish You Were Here is set during the pandemic we are all living through. I wouldn't have knowingly picked up a book set in the midst of covid because it still feels to close too home but as always Jodi has hit the nail on the head.

Getting into it I thought it this was turning into a love story and it felt like something quite unusual from what Jodi has bought out before and I was loving it. Unfortunately the huge twist that happens at 61% (aka 'it was all a dream') is something I really dislike in stories and that is the reason this is a 4 star rather than a 5 star review. Overall I think that it was written well and the pandemic was written about in a way that is going to resonate with a lot of people but the twist just didn't sit well with me. Saying that, this was still an incredibly well written and one I will recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. This was set during Covid and, strangely, due to the shared experience the world has gone through, it makes the plot all the more relatable. I enjoyed the writing, good characters and compelling turns in the storyline. A good read.