Narrator performance: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Overall rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Wish You Were Here is my third pandemic focused read, you’d think it’d be preferred to shy away from these but in fact, I’m finding these oddly refreshing. Hearing pandemic experiences that are starkly different from my own is enlightening.
Diana is an art dealer just about to head to the Galapagos with her doctor boyfriend in March 2020 when the pandemic shifts into its first wave. Her boyfriend must stay in NYC but she decides to go, only to find the island closed to tourists. She decides to stay anyway and the story follows her interactions with the locals and discovery of her true self as she is isolated from the pandemic and regular communications home. Here and there she will find wifi and get an email from her boyfriend pouring out the miseries of the pandemic from the heart of it. The dichotomy of it is interesting to observe.
I wished for a little more majesty of the Galapagos, there are scenes of it but most of Diana’s focus is on the people. That may just be my personal preference as an introvert biologist though… I enjoyed Diana’s experience and how her revelations were similar to many people in the pandemic where they realize the day to day choices they’ve made prior don’t really hold up to what’s really in their heart.
Truly this is like two books, mid-stream the story takes a turn and I was so surprised by that I almost didn’t keep going with it. Picoult is good at that gut punch, isn’t she? I’m glad I stuck with it although I preferred the first half of the book to the second, I also didn’t think it needed the epilogue and my overall rating reflects those two things.
Also I’ve decided Marin Ireland is my favorite audiobook narrator. I read this book half on my kindle with the early copy I got from Netgalley and half on Libro.fm with an ALC. I rarely prefer the audiobook to actually reading but as it was with Cloud Cuckoo Land, Marin’s voice added so much to the story. I am definitely going to be looking out for her in more reads. All opinions above are my own. ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Are you shying away from pandemic reads or dystopian themes now that we’re living in one or can you enjoy stories that parallel our real world trauma?
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