Q: What was the last country you’ve traveled to?

I went to Canada a couple of years ago but I haven’t really traveled since COVID except yay to Florida to see the in-laws. The week between Xmas and NYE we are going to Monterey, CA.
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Wish You Were Here
by Jodi Picoult
Pub Date- 11/30/21
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This book was amazing and 30% in I wasn’t too happy with where it was going cause you know pandemic and I get claustrophobic. So being stuck in a vacation spot no matter how gorgeous if you have no amenities and everything is closed you are still stuck.

But there was this interesting wake up call to it, that this pandemic also has brought to our attention. To think about what is important. To reevaluate and to slow down. We have all been moving so fast through our lives or being pushed that we haven’t been allowed to live.

I don’t want to say too much about the major symptom that she brought up in the book cause it gave me chills, but read it.

And I have been googling and seeing nothing on this. I want to hear more about this! How have we not heard anything about this if it is happening to people?

I felt chapters 15, 16 and 17 in my soul. I have def felt all of that.

OMG after reading this book I looked up at the tv and my husband was watching the news and it said 800,000 dead. I’m like 😭 my heart breaks for all of these families and there are still people that don’t think that it’s a big deal. My husband’s second cousin was sick with early onset dementia in a nursing home in NJ and contracted covid in March of 2020 and passed so quickly I don’t think his wife got a chance to see him. She also lost her father in that same month.

The author’s note was perfection too! I can’t even cut and paste it, it’s too long but it made me teary. If we don’t make historical records of these events, are we doomed to repeat them again or to not take them seriously when they do.

Thank you penguinrandomhouse and netgalley for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

Synopsis:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author comes a deeply moving novel about the resilience of the human spirit in a moment of crisis.

Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos—days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time.

But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes.

Almost immediately, Diana’s dream vacation goes awry. The whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders reopen. Completely isolated, she must venture beyond her comfort zone. Slowly, she carves out a connection with a local family when a teenager with a secret opens up to Diana, despite her father’s suspicion of outsiders.

Diana finds herself examining her relationships, her choices, and herself—and wondering if when she goes home, she too will have evolved into someone completely different.