Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult
Synopsis:
This is a fiction book about a woman named Diana, an art acquisition specialist, who has always planned her life perfectly. Diana and her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, are supposed to be leaving on a vacation to the Galapagos Islands. However, Finn tells Diana that he can’t take time off due to the pandemic and all are doctors are needed so asks Diana to go without him so they don’t lose money on their already paid vacation.
Diana arrives on the island of Isabela and finds out that they are closing borders for a two week quarantine and is unable to get back home and is forced to stay there. However, she meets Beatriz, Gabriel, and Abuela, and adapts to life on the island and starts to get closer to Gabriel, and they end up sleeping together. Eventually, Diana wakes up with Finn back by her side, and he tells her she has been in the COVID ward of a hospital for the past ten days and that she never went to the Galapagos Islands and that the whole thing was a psychosis.
Diana has been furloughed from her job, her mother who has Alzheimer’s is still alive, but she is feeling distant from Finn. After her mother dies, Finn proposes to her, but she rejects his proposal because she feels she has grown apart from him. She becomes an art therapist and finally visits the Galapagos.
Review:
I liked this book a lot and found it to be very engaging and thought provoking.
“Busy is just a euphemism for being so focused on what you don’t have that you never notice what you do. It’s a defense mechanism. Because if you stop hustling, if you pause, you start wondering why you ever thought you wanted all those things.’’
“There are two ways of looking at walls. Either they are built to keep people you fear out or they are built to keep people you love in. Either way, you create a divide.’’
“According to Darwin’s Origin of Species, it’s not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it’s not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is best able to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.”
“I learned the hard way that you shouldn’t stay with someone because of your past together. What matters more is if you want the same things in the future.”