Ponder: Wish You Were Here

Jodi Picoult is a very uneven author for me; I like some of her books but am disappointed by others. Wish You Were Here was a big disappointment for me. The premise is interesting, even if implausible. 

Diana  is a professional art seller and her boyfriend Finn is a surgical resident, both living in New York City. They are scheduled for a two week vacation in the Galápagos when an outbreak of COVID-19 decimates the medical response and hospitals in the city.  The crisis means Finn cannot leave his job, all hands are required. He urges Diane to go alone so at least she can enjoy the prepaid non-refundable vacation.  I found it odd that a woman would go off while her boyfriend is under such stress and choose to not stay with him for support. Nevertheless, that is how the book proceeds. The reasoning is that Finn will not be able to spend much time with Diana, plus she will be more vulnerable to the virus when periodically exposed to him if she stays.

There are lots of stressors on the island beyond the medical ones in New York. The island is shut down in hopes of securing COVID-19 isolation so amenities such as hotel, food, and stores are unavailable. The wifi and cell signals are down so communications between Diane and Finn are limited and strained. He manages to get a few emails off to her but instead of professing his love and how much he misses here, the emails are filled with horrifying details of failure to save patients and the dire progression of the disease. No spoilers here, but there is a twist near the end of the book which I thought was lame and a cop-out. I completed Wish You Were Here, ©2021, but rated this book one star. 

★☆☆☆☆ Awful but I read most or maybe even all of it.

I read Wish You Were Here back in February and just now got around to releasing this post. In order to brighten up this pessimistic blog post I googled some photos for Galápagos and COVID-19. I was surprised at the similarity between these two photos.