Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult

4 reviews

saara_ilona_muu's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Infertility, Infidelity, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

_david_'s review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

I think I'm just not a fan of books in which the covid pandemic plays a big role. Nearly everyone currently alive has lived through it and witnessed its horrors or conspired that it wasn't that bad, but this book will not convince them otherwise. The plot twist was well written, but I still didn't like the story after. If you do not like the first half of the book, you will not enjoy the second.  

To me personally, the main character was very self-centered and spoiled. A big theme in the book is that she "evolved" on the island to fit in better. She barely did though. She just got lucky with some villagers. The only moments I enjoyed was her making art with Belize, but the rest of the book made my eyes roll. 

I think there was still a big clash of what the main character and I find important in life. I would have done the exact opposite of each choise she made in the end, except for perhaps the career choice.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Infidelity, Medical content, Dementia, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Blood, Suicide attempt, Lesbophobia, Outing, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Infertility, Vomit, War, and Classism

tinytrashqueen's review against another edition

sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Infidelity, Self harm, Terminal illness, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

Moderate: Chronic illness and Confinement

Minor: Alcoholism and Alcohol

Covid, Alzheimer's,

bethsbookshelf's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Sometimes I think Jodi Picoult uses the novel to showcase fun facts she’s learned since writing her last novel. In this case: snorkelling, the Galapagos, art therapy, artwork and of course, Covid. While all of this information is interesting, this novel felt really info-dumpy to me, lacking an original character arc and a wowing plot. 

I was gripped at the start and again in the middle, but overall disappointed,

especially by the twist that Diana’s time on the island was a dream, and then again by the fact that Jodi experimented with sci-fi only for that to be written off as Diana being “crazy”

. 

The character development felt lack-lustre to me. Finn was arguably the most interesting character and all we got from him was a couple of emails, a very short paragraph about his spiralling into alcoholism and a lot of Diana’s inner monologue about how horrible he was, only to never be shown that with any concrete facts.

That being said, Diana getting Covid and having this wild dream was all a ploy for her to have this epiphany that the white, middle-class, American dream wasn’t for her. How privileged do you have to be to give THAT up for a little bit more independence? Like really? That was the point of the novel?

The whole theme of needing human connection and how living in pandemic isolation is not natural for our species was nice, but again, not original. That’s all everyone has talked about online since the first lockdown. Again, reflects on Jodi’s white privilege a little bit again when other people were struggling to eat, find shelter, survive during Covid. I know that Diana’s storyline

getting covid and being isolated on an island

isn’t technically very priveleged, and she has bad luck, but she still thrives and to be honest, a lot of that seems to have to do with the fact that her boyfriend is a surgeon, and again, that she’s good-looking enough on this island to get help. Maybe I’m reading into this too much but I just feel like this didn’t showcase a very fair or unique representation of people’s struggles during the pandemic. Finn would have been a much more interesting character to focus on with his PTSD, or Rodney, with the fact that he had to move back home because he lost his job. 

Anyway, I feel like I read 350 pages of information just so Diana could have a very slight character arc that wasn’t really rooted in anything tangible or concrete. Jodi Picoult is one of my favourite others and a huge reason I’m a writer today. She even wrote me a wedding card! But this book missed the mark for me, sadly. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Confinement, Death, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Abandonment

Minor: Alcoholism and Alcohol