I have several things I’d like to share about Wish You Were Here, a recent novel by Jodi Picoult. Unfortunately, some of those are spoilers that are better suited for a book club discussion, and I wouldn’t want to ruin it for anybody.
The premise of the story is that Diana O’Toole and her boyfriend, Finn, are supposed to leave for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Galápagos just as the Covid pandemic is picking up. Finn, a surgical resident in New York City, makes the difficult decision to stay behind, but encourages Diana to go without him. Diana immediately encounters problems: her luggage gets lost, there’s barely functioning Wi-Fi on Isabela Island, her Spanish is minimal (she was counting on Finn for that), and to top it off, the island and her hotel close as she arrives. Stranded until the island’s quarantine lifts, she finds herself rescued by a woman who introduces herself as “abuela” (grandmother) and develops a friendship with her family.
The intermittent Wi-Fi connection allows the occasional e-mail from Finn to get through, detailing all the weirdness and stress that we heard about hospitals experiencing in the news in the early days – and now, with the Omicron surge – of this pandemic. The isolation allows Diana to rediscover herself and explore the beautiful island she’s stranded on. Picoult perfectly captures both the isolation and the terrifying effects of Covid on our lives, yet somehow does it in an uplifting way.