Do we have to talk about covid?

Two pandemic themed booked

I hadn’t planned to write about this just at this time. We are heading into Christmas after all so maybe I should’ve picked a more upbeat topic? My husband has just left isolation having had his first round of covid, so it is top of mind. My older daughter had covid (very badly) in March 2022, and developed long covid. She still lives with some of the ongoing repercussions of that, so it isn’t exactly a fun topic in this house, but that didn’t stop me reading about it. If you or your family are currently suffering from covid, sending you healing thoughts at this time. I am sorry you are dealing with this, particularly at this time of year.

If you haven’t had enough of covid or pandemic chat, and you really want to read about it.. then read on (and I know that some people who I recommended these books to, could not deal with living in a pandemic AND reading about a pandemic which is completely valid .. this may not be the post for you).

This book was a page turner and perhaps one of the most frustrating books I have ever read in my life. This one was recommended to me by my friend Laura who was reading this as one of her book club books.

Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult, goes to the top of my list of books of “why did you have to have THAT plot twist”. If you have read any Jodi Picoult books, you will know that the way she writes is always with a massive plot twist. Jodi Picoult was one of my earlier dabbles with obsessive book reading when I had to read every possible book, and own every possible book ever written by her. I soon learned that reading too many of these at one time can make them a bit predictable as you get to know her style which means you can start to predict “the twist”. I try my very best just to read now and not guess what is coming, and for this one I did not guess the twist, and…  I DID NOT LIKE THE TWIST! One of my friends Alice asked me about this very book as we were waiting for our boys to come out of school the other day. Have you read “Wish You Were Here” by Jodi Picoult, she asks me? Is that the covid one, I asked? “Yes!” And we both then discuss how frustrated we were with the twist. It wasn’t just me! Although I am doing a terrible job of selling this book – I could not put it down. Jodi Picoult has a very engaging style in that way which makes you want to keep going and going until it is 1 am.

This book is about Diana who has her life all mapped out. She is doing well in her job, and is living with her boyfriend Finn who is a surgical resident at a New York hospital. She knows he is going to propose to her any day now.. They plan a romantic trip to the Galapagos Islands (the location of the very planned proposal), for her 30th birthday. The night before departure, Finn breaks the news that because of the outbreak of this thing called covid, it is all hands on deck and any leave booked has been cancelled. He encourages her to take the trip alone – and she does. She arrives, and the whole island is effectively shut down because of covid. I have never been to the Galapagos Islands, and this book made me want to go there ASAP – perhaps not in a pandemic though!

The rights to this book have been sold to Netflix, so this one will be coming to a screen some time soon. If you don’t want to read about the pandemic, maybe you can watch it instead?

If a book makes you feel frustrated, is that a good thing or a bad thing? All I know is it is a thing, and it made this book very memorable to me.. and to Laura and to Alice! I would love to know if you have read this one and what you thought of the twist? (No spoilers please!)

If you love a pandemic read, the next one to add to your list is “The End of Men” by Christina Sweeney-Baird. This book is set in 2025 when a mysterious illness breaks out which only impacts men. Dr Amanda MacLean reports this phenomenon, and she is dismissed as hysterical. By the time the world catches on, it is too late and the virus is everywhere. The virus becomes a global pandemic. The victims are all men, and the world is led by women. The thing that blew my mind about this book was that it was written in 2018 prior to covid, but the similarities of the way people, leaders and countries reacted, and the race for a vaccine, was uncanny. It felt almost a bit like fortune telling, and made me wonder, how do people come up with these ideas? Spoiler alert: in this world run by women, they end up finding a cure for endometriosis (I swear that if men suffered from this, we would have a cure for it by now)..

This is a debut novel, and I look forward to seeing what Christina Sweeney-Baird writes next.

I’d love to know if you have read any pandemic themed books recently, and what you thought of them. Are there any out there for me to add to my “to read” list?

Because life is too short to read bad books.