by Jodi Picoult
What a book! Jodi Picoult has done it again. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this one, and in some ways I’m glad I didn’t really know the story in advance. Without giving too much away, it’s a story about a woman who works in New York City at Sotheby’s as an art dealer and has a boyfriend who is a surgical resident at a New York City hospital. It kicks off just as the pandemic is starting in March 2020. They have a vacation planned to the Galapagos Islands and her boyfriend stays in NYC because it is all hands on deck with COVID-19 in the hospitals. She decides to still go to the Galapagos for vacation and gets stuck there for an extended period because of the pandemic. The book then follows her journey, drawing you in. It is told entirely from her perspective in a fast-paced manner.
There is one huge twist that I didn’t see coming at all!!! It really took me by surprise. I’m sure most readers won’t see it coming. Some readers may not buy it, will be annoyed by it, or misunderstand it. I actually felt the opposite. I loved the twist. And once it happened, I understood everything on a deeper level. And I suspended disbelief and bought into it. Fascinating take that made the book even more interesting and helped it surpass just a “pandemic story”. It became so much more.
