GEODYSSEUS | Kirkus Reviews

A younger lady finds herself at a Covid-induced crossroads in Picoult’s newest ultratopical novel.

Sotheby’s affiliate Diana O’Toole, age 29, and her surgical resident boyfriend, Finn, are planning a visit to the Galapagos in March 2020. However as New York Metropolis shuts down, Finn is named to do battle towards Covid-19 in his hospital’s ICU and ER, whereas Diana, at his urging, travels to the archipelago alone. She arrives on Isabela Island simply as quarantine descends and elects to remain, although her baggage was misplaced, her resort is shuttered, and her Spanish is “restricted.” What follows is the meticulously researched depiction Picoult readers have come to anticipate, of the natural world of this island and each its paradisiacal and harmful elements. Stunning lagoons cover riptides, spectacular volcanic vistas conceal deep pits—and penguins chew! A resort worker identified solely as Abuela provides Diana shelter at her house. Fortunately, Abuela’s grandson Gabriel, a former tour information, speaks flawless English, as does his troubled daughter, Beatriz, 14, who was attending college off-island when the pandemic pressured her again house. Beatriz and Diana bond over their distant and withholding moms: Diana’s is a world-famous photographer now consigned to a reminiscence care facility with early-onset Alzheimer’s, whereas Beatriz’s ran off with a considerably much less well-known photographer. Regardless of patchy cellphone indicators and Wi-Fi, emails from Finn break via, describing, additionally in Picoult’s spare-no-detail starkness, the horrors of his lengthy shifts because the virus wreaks its variegated havoc and the circumstances and loss of life toll mount. Diana is venturing into romantically and actually treacherous waters when Picoult yanks this novel off life-support by resorting to a flagrantly hackneyed plot system. By some means, although, it really works, thanks once more to that penchant for grounding each fictional situation in completely documented truth. All through, we’re handled to pithy if fairly self-evident thematic underscoring, e.g. “You may’t plan your life….As a result of then you’ve got a plan. Not a life.”

Warning: Between lurid scenes of plague and paradise, whiplash might ensue.