Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

By Emily Nagoski, PhD and Amelia Nagoski, DMA

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “This book is a gift! I’ve been practicing their strategies, and it’s a total game changer.”—Brené Brown, PhD, author of Dare to Lead

“A primer on how to stop letting the world dictate how you live and what we think of ourselves, Burnout is essential reading [and] . . . excels in its intersectionality.”—Bustle
 
This groundbreaking book explains why women experience burnout differently than men—and provides a roadmap to minimizing stress, managing emotions, and living more joyfully.
 
Burnout. You, like most American women, have probably experienced it. What’s expected of women and what it’s really like to exist as a woman in today’s world are two different things—and we exhaust ourselves trying to close the gap. Sisters Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA, are here to help end the all-too-familiar cycle of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. They compassionately explain the obstacles and societal pressures we face—and how we can fight back. 
 
You’ll learn
• what you can do to complete the biological stress cycle
• how to manage the “monitor” in your brain that regulates the emotion of frustration
• how the Bikini Industrial Complex makes it difficult for women to love their bodies—and how to defend yourself against it
• why rest, human connection, and befriending your inner critic are keys to recovering from and preventing burnout
 
With the help of eye-opening science, prescriptive advice, and helpful worksheets and exercises, all women will find something transformative in Burnout—and will be empowered to create positive change.

A BOOKRIOT BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781984817075

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

This is a book for any woman who has felt overwhelmed and exhausted by everything she had to do, and yet still worried she was not doing enough. Which is every woman we know—including us.

You’ve heard the usual advice over and over: exercise, green smoothies, self-compassion, coloring books, mindfulness, bubble baths, gratitude….You’ve probably tried a lot of it. So have we. And sometimes it helps, at least for a while. But then the kids are struggling in school or our partner needs support through a difficulty or a new work project lands in our laps, and we think, I’ll do the self-care thing as soon as I finish this.

The problem is not that women don’t try. On the contrary, we’re trying all the time, to do and be all the things everyone demands from us. And we will try anything—any green smoothie, any deep-breathing exercise, any coloring book or bath bomb, any retreat or vacation we can shoehorn into our schedules—to be what our work and our family and our world demand. We try to put on our own oxygen mask before assisting others. And then along comes another struggling kid or terrible boss or difficult semester.

The problem is not that we aren’t trying. The problem isn’t even that we don’t know how. The problem is the world has turned wellness into yet another goal everyone should strive for, but only people with time and money and nannies and yachts and Oprah’s phone number can actually achieve.

So this book is different from anything else you’ll read about burnout. We’ll figure out what wellness can look like in your actual real life, and we’ll confront the barriers that stand between you and your own well-being. We’ll put those barriers in context, like landmarks on a map, so we can find paths around and over and through them—or sometimes just blow them to smithereens.

With science.

Who We Are and Why We Wrote Burnout

Emily is a health educator with a PhD and a New York Times bestselling book, Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life. When she was traveling all over talking about that book, readers kept telling her the most life-changing information in the book wasn’t the sex science; it was those sections about stress and emotion processing.

When she told her identical twin sister, Amelia, a choral conductor, Amelia blinked like that was obvious. "Of course. Nobody teaches us how to feel our feelings. Hell, I was taught. Any conservatory-trained musician learns to feel feelings singing on stages or standing on podiums. But that didn’t mean I knew how to do it in the real world. And when I finally learned, it probably saved my life," she said.

Twice, she added.

And Emily, recalling how it felt to watch her sister crying in a hospital gown, said, We should write a book about that.

Amelia agreed, saying, A book about that would’ve made my life a lot better.

This is that book.

It turned into a lot more than a book about stress. Above all, it became a book about connection. We humans are not built to do big things alone, we are built to work together. That’s what we wrote about, and it’s how we wrote it.

IT’S THE EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION

When we told women we were writing a book called Burnout, nobody ever asked, What’s burnout? (Mostly what they said was, Is it out yet? Can I read it?) We all have an intuitive sense of what burnout is; we know how it feels in our bodies and how our emotions crumble in the grip of it. But when it was first coined as a technical term by Herbert Freudenberger in 1975, burnout was defined by three components:

1. emotional exhaustion— the fatigue that comes from caring too much, for too long;

2. depersonalization— the depletion of empathy, caring, and compassion; and

3. decreased sense of accomplishment— an unconquerable sense of futility: feeling that nothing you do makes any difference. ¹

And here’s an understatement: Burnout is highly prevalent. Twenty to thirty percent of teachers in America have moderately high to high levels of burnout.² Similar rates are found among university professors and international humanitarian aid workers.³ Among medical professionals, burnout can be as high as 52 percent.⁴ Nearly all the research on burnout is on professional burnout—specifically people who help people, like teachers and nurses—but a growing area of research is parental burnout.⁵

In the forty years since the original formulation, research has found it’s the first element in burnout, emotional exhaustion, that’s most strongly linked to negative impacts on our health, relationships, and work—especially for women.⁶

So what exactly is an emotion, and how do you exhaust it?

Emotions, at their most basic level, involve the release of neurochemicals in the brain, in response to some stimulus. You see the person you have a crush on across the room, your brain releases a bunch of chemicals, and that triggers a cascade of physiological changes—your heart beats faster, your hormones shift, and your stomach flutters. You take a deep breath and sigh. Your facial expression changes; maybe you blush; even the timbre of your voice becomes warmer. Your thoughts shift to memories of the crush and fantasies about the future, and you suddenly feel an urge to cross the room and say hi. Just about every system in your body responds to the chemical and electrical cascade activated by the sight of the person.

That’s emotion. It’s automatic and instantaneous. It happens everywhere, and it affects everything. And it’s happening all the time—we feel many different emotions simultaneously, even in response to one stimulus. You may feel an urge to approach your crush, but also, simultaneously, feel an urge to turn away and pretend you didn’t notice them.

Left to their own devices, emotions—these instantaneous, whole-body reactions to some stimulus—will end on their own. Your attention shifts from your crush to some other topic, and the flush of infatuation eases, until that certain special someone crosses your mind or your path once more. The same goes for the jolt of pain you feel when someone is cruel to you or the flash of disgust when you smell something unpleasant. They just end.

In short, emotions are tunnels. If you go all the way through them, you get to the light at the end.

Exhaustion happens when we get stuck in an emotion.

We may get stuck simply because we’re constantly being exposed to situations that activate emotion—our crush is there, all day, every day, even if only in our thoughts, and so we’re trapped in our own longing. Or we return to our stressful job every single day. No wonder helping professions are so exhausting—you’re confronted with people in need, all day, day after day. No wonder parenting is so exhausting—once you’re a parent, you’re never not a parent. You’re always going through the tunnel.

Sometimes we get stuck because we can’t find our way through. The most difficult feelings—rage, grief, despair, helplessness—may be too treacherous to move through alone. We get lost and need someone else, a loving presence, to help us find our way.

And sometimes we get stuck because we’re trapped in a place where we are not free to move through the tunnel.

Many of us are trapped in just this way, because of a problem we call Human Giver Syndrome.

HUMAN GIVER SYNDROME

In Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, philosopher Kate Manne describes a system in which one class of people,⁷ the human givers, are expected to offer their time, attention, affection, and bodies willingly, placidly, to the other class of people, the human beings.⁸ The implication in these terms is that human beings have a moral obligation to be or express their humanity, while human givers have a moral obligation to give their humanity to the human beings. Guess which one women are.

In day-to-day life, the dynamic is more complicated and subtle, but let’s imagine the cartoon version: The human givers are the attentive, loving subordinates to the human beings.⁹ The givers’ role is to give their whole humanity to the beings, so that the beings can be their full humanity. Givers are expected to abdicate any resource or power they may happen to acquire—their jobs, their love, their bodies. Those belong to the beings.

Human givers must, at all times, be pretty, happy, calm, generous, and attentive to the needs of others, which means they must never be ugly, angry, upset, ambitious, or attentive to their own needs. Givers are not supposed to need anything. If they dare to ask for or, God forbid, demand anything, that’s a violation of their role as a giver and they may be punished. And if a giver doesn’t obediently and sweetly hand over whatever a being wants, for that, too, the giver may be punished, shamed, or even destroyed.

If we had set out to design a system to induce burnout in half the population, we could not have constructed anything more efficient.

Emotional exhaustion happens when we get stuck in an emotion and can’t move through the tunnel. In Human Giver Syndrome, the giver isn’t allowed to inconvenience anyone with anything so messy as emotions, so givers are trapped in a situation where they are not free to move through the tunnel. They might even be punished for it.

Your body, with its instinct for self-preservation, knows, on some level, that Human Giver Syndrome is slowly killing you. That’s why you keep trying mindfulness and green smoothies and self-care trend after self-care trend. But that instinct for self-preservation is battling a syndrome that insists that self-preservation is selfish, so your efforts to care for yourself might actually make things worse, activating even more punishment from the world or from yourself, because how dare you?

Human Giver Syndrome is our disease.

The book you’re reading is our prescription.

How the Book Is Organized

We’ve divided Burnout into three parts. Part I is What You Take with You.

In the Star Wars movie Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker sees an evil cave. Looking toward the entrance in dread, he asks his teacher Yoda, What’s in there?

Yoda answers, Only what you take with you.

This beginning section of the book explains three internal resources that we carry with us as we take our heroine’s journey: the stress response cycle, the Monitor (the brain mechanism that controls the emotion of frustration), and meaning in life. Meaning is often misunderstood as the thing we’ll find at the end of the tunnel, but it’s not. It’s why we go through the tunnel, regardless of what we find on the other end. (Spoiler alert: meaning is good for us.)

Which brings us to Part II. We call it The Real Enemy.

That’s a reference to The Hunger Games, in which young Katniss Everdeen is forced into a game organized by the dystopian sci-fi government, in which she has to kill other children.

Her mentor says to her, Remember who the real enemy is. It’s not the people the government wants her to kill, and who are trying to kill her. The real enemy is the government that set this whole system up in the first place.

Can you guess what the enemy is in this book?

[Cue ominous music] The Patriarchy. Ugh.

Most self-help books for women leave this chapter out and instead discuss only the things readers can control, but that’s like teaching someone the best winning strategy of a game without mentioning that the game is rigged. Fortunately, when we understand how the game is rigged, we can start playing by our own rules.

And then Part III—the thrilling conclusion—is the science of winning the war against these real enemies. It turns out there are concrete, specific things we can do each and every day, to grow mighty and conquer the enemy.

We call this part Wax On, Wax Off.

In the original Karate Kid movie, Mr. Miyagi teaches Danny LaRusso karate by having the kid wax his car.

Wax on, says Mr. Miyagi, rotating his palm clockwise. Wax off, he says, rotating his other palm counterclockwise, and he adds, Don’t forget to breathe. He also has Danny sand the deck, stain the fence, and paint the house.

Why the repetitive, mundane tasks?

Because in the mundane tasks live the protective gestures that help us grow strong enough to defend ourselves and the people we love, and to make peace with our enemies.

Wax on, wax off is what makes you stronger: connection, rest, and self-compassion.

Throughout the book, you’ll follow the stories of two women: Julie, an overwhelmed public school teacher whose body will revolt against her, forcing her to pay attention to it; and Sophie, an engineer who will decide she is not here for the patriarchy.These women are composites: In the same way a movie is made of thousands of still images, edited together to tell a story, they are composed of fragments of dozens of real-life women. We’re using this technique partly to protect the identities of the real women and partly because this larger narrative arc more effectively explains the science than stand-alone vignettes can. The research doesn’t come close to addressing every woman’s experience, but we hope that these stories will give you that sense of how each individual’s experience is unique and yet, at the same time, universal.

And each chapter ends with a tl;dr list. Tl;dr is the Internet abbreviation for too long; didn’t read. If you write a five-hundred-word post on Facebook or a multiparagraph comment on Instagram, someone may well reply, tl;dr. Our tl;dr lists contain the ideas you can share with your best friend when she calls you in tears, the facts you can use to disprove myths when they come up in conversation, and the thoughts we hope come to you when your racing mind keeps you awake at night.

A CAVEAT OR TWO ABOUT SCIENCE

In this book, we use science as a tool to help women live better lives. We’ve turned to diverse domains of science, including affective neuroscience, psychophysiology, positive psychology, ethology, game theory, computational biology, and many others. So a few words of caution about science.

Science is the best idea humanity has ever had. It’s a systematic way of exploring the nature of reality, of testing and proving or disproving ideas. But it’s important to remember that science is ultimately a specialized way of being wrong. That is, every scientist tries to be (a) slightly less wrong than the scientists who came before them, by proving that something we thought was true actually isn’t, and (b) wrong in a way that can be tested and proven, which results in the next scientist being slightly less wrong. Research is the ongoing process of learning new things that show us a little more of what’s true, which inevitably reveals how wrong we used to be, and it is never finished. So whenever you read a headline like New Study Shows… or Latest Research Finds…, read with skepticism. One study does not equal proof of anything. In Burnout, we’ve aimed to use ideas that have been established over multiple decades and reinforced by multiple approaches. Still, science doesn’t offer perfect truth, only the best available truth. Science, in a sense, is not an exact science.

A second caveat: Social science is generally done by measuring lots of people and assessing the average measurement of all those people, because people vary. Just because something is true about a group of people—like, American women are, on average, five feet four inches tall—doesn’t mean it’s true about any specific individual within that group. So if you meet an American woman who isn’t five foot four, there’s nothing wrong with her, she’s just different from the average. And there’s nothing wrong with the science, either; it’s true that women are, on average, five foot four—but that tells us nothing in particular about any specific woman we may meet. So if you read some science in this book that describes women but doesn’t describe you, that doesn’t mean the science is wrong and it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. People vary, and they change. Science is too blunt an instrument to capture every woman’s situation.

A third caveat: Science is often expensive, and who pays for it can influence the outcome and whether or not the results are published. As enthusiastic as we are about evidence-based practices, it’s important to remember where that evidence comes from and why we might not see contrary evidence.¹⁰

Science has a fourth specific limitation worth mentioning in a book about women: When a research article says it studied women, it almost always means it studied people who were born in a body that made all the grown-ups around them say, It’s a girl! and then that person was raised as a girl and grew into an adult who felt comfortable in the psychological identity and social role of woman. There are plenty of people who identify as women for whom at least one of those things is not true, and there are plenty of people who don’t identify as women, for whom one or more of those things is true. In this book, when we use the word woman, we mostly mean people who identify as women, but it’s important to remember that when we describe the science, we’re limited to the women who were identified at birth and raised as women, because that’s mostly who has been studied. (Sorry.)

So. We try to be as science-based as we can be, but we’re aware of its limits.

That’s where the art comes in.

As science fiction author Cassandra Clare writes, Fiction is truth, even if it is not fact. This is what storytelling is for—and in fact research has found that people understand science better when it’s communicated through storytelling! So side by side with the neuroscience and computational biology, we’ll talk about Disney princesses, sci-fi dystopias, pop music, and more, because story goes where science can’t.

THE OWL AND THE CHEESE

Here’s a real study that real scientists really conducted:¹¹

Research participants were given some mazes—just lines on paper—and instructed that their goal was to get the cartoon mouse from one side of the maze to the other. In one version of the maze, a cartoon owl loomed over the page, hunting the mouse. In another version, a morsel of cheese awaited the mouse at its destination.

Which group completed the maze faster, the ones who were moving toward the cheese, or the ones who were fleeing from the owl?

The cheese group. Participants completed more mazes, more quickly, when their imaginations were propelled toward a reward even as mild as cartoon cheese, than when running away from an uncomfortable state even as subtle as the threat of a cartoon owl.

It makes perfect sense when you think about it. If you’re moving toward a specific, desired goal, your attention and efforts are focused on that single outcome. But if you’re moving away from a threat, it hardly matters where you end up, as long as it’s somewhere safe from the threat.

The moral of the story is: We thrive when we have a positive goal to move toward, not just a negative state we’re trying to move away from. If we hate where we are, our first instinct often is to run aimlessly away from the owl of our present circumstances, which may lead us somewhere not much better than where we started. We need something positive to move toward. We need the cheese.

The cheese of Burnout isn’t just feeling less overwhelmed and exhausted, or no longer worrying whether you’re doing enough. The cheese is growing mighty, feeling strong enough to cope with all the owls and mazes and anything else the world throws at you.

Our promise to you is this: Wherever you are in your life, whether you’re struggling in a pit of despair and searching for a way out, or you’re doing great and want tools to grow mightier, you will find something important in these pages. We’ll show you science that proves you’re normal and you’re not alone. We’ll offer evidence-based tools to use when you’re struggling and that you can share with people you love when they’re struggling. We’ll surprise you with science that contradicts the commonsense knowledge you’ve spent your whole life believing. And we’ll inspire and empower you to create positive change in your own life and the lives of those you love.

Writing this book did all of these things for us—showed us we’re normal and we’re not alone, taught us important skills to use when we’re struggling, and surprised us and empowered us. It has already changed our lives, and we think it will change yours, too.

PART I

What You Take with You

1

COMPLETE THE CYCLE

I’ve decided to start selling drugs so I can quit my job.

This is how Amelia’s friend Julie recently answered the question How are you? the Saturday before the new school year started. She was kidding, of course…except she wasn’t. She’s a middle school teacher. Her burnout had reached an intensity where merely the anticipation of the start of the first semester had activated a level of dread that left her reaching for the box of Chardonnay by 2 P.M.

Nobody likes to think of their kids’ middle school teacher as burned out, embittered, and day-drinking, but she’s not alone. Burnout—with its cynicism, sense of helplessness, and, above all, emotional exhaustion—is startlingly ubiquitous.

I saw that story about the teacher who showed up on the first day of school drunk with no pants, and I thought, ‘There but for the grace of God go I,’ Julie told Amelia, from the bottom of her first glass.

Dread is anxiety on steroids, Amelia said, remembering her own days teaching middle school music, and the anxiety comes from the accumulation, day after day, of stress that never ends.

Yes, Julie declared, filling her glass again.

"The thing about teaching is, you can’t ever get rid

Reviews for Burnout

[bookanonjeff · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I DO NOT WANT TO READ ABOUT COVID!!!!!!!

A note to any and all authors and publishers, up front: I ABSOLUTELY, 10000%, DO NOT WANT TO READ ABOUT COVID!!!!! I READ FICTION TO *ESCAPE* THE "REAL" WORLD!!!!! Write the stories if you feel you must. Maybe for your own mental health, you *need* to write COVID stories. For the rest of us, PLEASE do NOT publish them for a while. It is still *TOO* real, no matter what one thinks about the virus or any of the politics around it. (And remember, no matter your own thoughts on it, there are large segments of your potential customers who will disagree with you.)

All of the above noted, the actual story here is well crafted and well told. Picoult manages to bring in, from a more mysticism side, one of the aspects of Bill Myers' Eli that made that book one of the most influential of my own life - even as he approached the concept from a more science/ science fiction side. The scenes in the Galapagos in particular are truly viscerally stunning. You feel yourself being there as much as our lead character is, in all of the messy situations she finds herself trapped in on this paradise as the world falls apart. Indeed, had the entire book been based there, to me it would have been a much better book overall - even though I objectively rated this story as a 5*, I must admit the latter third of the book, while still strong and compelling storytelling objectively, was less interesting to me (other than the mysticism mentioned above, as this is where those aspects come into play).

At the end of the day, I write this review roughly six weeks before publication and this book has nearly 600 reviews on Goodreads - at the time I began writing this, it looked as though this one will be number 569. Which speaks to the marketing reach and prowess of its publisher, and Picoult's own status as, as I described her on Facebook earlier this morning "a grocery store book section level author that seems to occupy half of said grocery store book section". And the mystic hook being so rarely used is perhaps reason to rate this book as more compelling than others, but overall the tale here and the level of the writing... as I mentioned on my review of Taylor Jenkins Reid's Malibu Rising: there is absolutely *no* doubt that this is a strong tale strongly crafted. But I really have read oh so many authors from less powerful publishers that are at least as good, and thus I truly don't understand the hype.

For those that *do* want a "real" look at COVID in their fiction, whether that be in 2021 or later, this book is absolutely must read. For those that want island escapism and don't mind COVID being a central part of the tale, you're definetly going to want to read this one, even if you've never read Picoult (as I had never before this book). But for those who, for any reason at all, just can't deal with COVID "realism" in their escapism/ fiction... maybe hold off on this one until you're at a point where you can. And then read it, because it really is a great story overall. Recommended.

[tjsjohanna_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found the suggestions and explanations in this book helpful but also felt like there was a lot of overgeneralizing going on - at least for me. There's no denying there are a lot of harmful messages out there for women. Maybe I have just always been good at ignoring them or maybe I was just lucky to be raised by parents whose positive messages were more powerful than the harmful ones?

[andsoitgoes_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I only gave this book 3 stars and that was for the very imaginative plot twist. Other than that I could not relate at all to Diana and her extreme selfishness - not only to the Isabella Island situation but also to her doctor boyfriend was horrible.

[daumari · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I tend to be a little bit wary of self-help books, especially if they make pop culture references because I feel like that dates them, but Burnout quite concisely describes the reasons for stress (we tend to freeze or flee or 'just grit your teeth and deal with it' without actually completing the stress cycle to release) and ways to alleviate that in our lives. It neatly packages a lot of what I stumbled into through my university's CAPS after nearly crashing and burning in grad school about self-compassion and recognizing it's okay to be kind to yourself, including thatinternal critical voice as part of yourself as well.

I tend to skim through other reviews before posting mine, just to see if I'm on a similar wavelength as other readers and this one seems to be polarizing- alas, I do wonder if some of the negative reviews would be less harsh if they became aware of the impact that systemic patriarchy has on nearly every aspect of society, and how there's a lot of stress on being a "Human Giver" as the Nagoski sisters put it.

[lisapeet · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think self-help really isn't my thing, but this is a subject that is of some interest to me this year and came recommended, so I went in with an open mind. There were some concrete ideas that were definitely of value for me, especially around physically managing the stress cycle so that it can conclude rather than keep spinning, and hammering home the importance of sleep... someday I'll internalize that one. I guess that's the point of this kind of book, take what you need and leave the rest... Anyway, I'm glad I read it even if not all of it stuck.

[zeljanamaricferli · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Diana O'Toole, a New Yorker and a Sotheby's art historian, is a type-A personality who ends up stranded on the Galapagos in the early days of the COVID pandemic. This is both a curse and a blessing for her as she gets to be stranded in paradise while her boyfriend is stuck working in the COVID section of a busy hospital in Manhattan. Since we all suffer the PTSD from the early days of the pandemic, having the story set in such an exotic location feels fresh and relaxing. At least for a little while...

This book has one of the most interesting twists I have ever read. However, I'm not sure that I quite liked it. Honestly, I feel I would have been fine without it, but since it is there I gotta say it added a new dimension to the novel. For me, the novel sank quite a bit after the twist and sorta stayed flat until the end.
The main relationship that everything revolves around is quite boring and superficial.

However, this book is well researched and insightful. It is true to the emotions we felt back in March 2020. Although a little bit cliche in the plot and characters, I give it 3.5.

[dknight0918 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I’m so glad Picoult tacked the subject of Covid. I really enjoyed this one. I enjoyed it being told from Diana’s point of view. I learned a lot.

[nadia.masood · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This novel is heavily based around COVID-19. We're still living the pandemic and this experience has been traumatic for so many (including myself), so please keep that in mind when reading this novel. It may be too soon for some to be reading this book.

Wish You Were Here is Jodi Picoult’s take on a novel about the pandemic, and this is the first novel I've read where the main plot is about Covid. It opens on March 13, 2020, in New York, when cases of the virus had just started being reported in the United States.

It felt surreal, reading this, especially since we're still going through the pandemic. I appreciate the research work by Jodi Picoult for this book and I felt transported back to when the pandemic first began, back when we were all so uncertain about what we were facing and how long we were going to be facing it.

Our protagonist Diana is stuck on Isabela Island in the Galápagos for the most part of the book, and much of the narrative is about her exploring her surroundings and getting to know a local family. Meanwhile, the progression of the pandemic is described by Finn, Diana's boyfriend, through his emails from New York.

I enjoyed the story until about halfway through the book. My biggest issue was the plot twist, which just ruined the whole story. I also don't particularly like Diana. I find her ungrateful and selfish, and her decisions do not make sense to me. Not once did I feel any sympathy or connection to her.

Also, it bothered me how casually the various characters broke things like quarantine or lockdown rules, often putting other people at risk of possibly contracting COVID. I find this upsetting, especially since I've lost someone close to me to COVID.

[mojomomma_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Set in March 2020 New York City, we all know what's coming. Diana and her boyfriend Finn are headed for the Galapagos Islands, but as a resident, he's denied his time off as cases are spiking at NYC hospitals. Diana goes by herself and gets "locked down" on the island of Isabela where she befriends three generations of the same family. Internet access is sparse and she only hears bits and pieces of what is happening with Finn and his long hospital shifts. But a near drowning in the ocean changes the story and we learn that Diana was a Covid patient and one of the few that survived in the early days. Her Galapagos experience makes her wonder about her carefully scripted life choices.

[mlhershey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Covid related story. Clever twist with main character. Good story of multiple relationships in "different lives in different locations." Galapagos.

[marigoldjackifitz · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

She wrote it in present tense, which cost a star. Stupid affectation among authors these days. Yes, I'm old.

I thought I knew how the book was going to end, early in the beginning. But then came that gigantic plot twist. Wow! Amazing! Totally did not see that coming.

I would love to see a sequel, but written in present tense, please.

[n.w.moors-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jodi Picoult is known for taking current events and making them into interesting and intimate stories. In this book, she covers the Covid pandemic.
Diana works at Sotheby's in acquisitions, while her boyfriend Finn is a resident doctor at an NYC hospital. They've planned a trip to the Galapagos Islands when a few cases of Covid hit the city. Finn has to stay but urges Diana to take the non-refundable trip. She arrives only to find she's stranded there on Isabela Island with iffy wi-fi and everything closed down, including her hotel. She's taken in by a lovely lady who only speaks Spanish while Diana doesn't, and the first half of the book is Diana reevaluating her life as she struggles to keep in touch with Finn while acclimating to island life. Then there's a huge twist, but no spoilers.
Diana and Finn have been perfect for each other, long-term planners and A-types, so life on the island alone with lost luggage and little money is a big adjustment for Diana. At the same time, she gets periodic emails from Finn describing the progress of the pandemic in his hospital. Most of this is familiar information if you paid attention during the worst of Covid, but it still hits hard, especially contrasted with Diana's hiking and swimming days.
The twist halfway through the book changes everything and almost turns this into a different but still interesting story. I enjoyed the vivid descriptions of the Galapagos and, in a different way, the compelling stories of the pandemic. Some political commentary won't please every reader, but I found it factual and well-researched. A very thought-provoking book.

[delphimo_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Jodi Picoult usually writes fascinating books, but Wish You Were Here misses the mark. The beginning and majority of the novel deals with Diana O’Toole’s trip to the Galapagos Islands without her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident at a New York hospital. Covid enters the picture and instead of both Diana and Finn going on vacation, Finn must stay and treat Covid patients, Diana goes to the islands and finds herself stranded on the island due to Covid. What a beautiful description of the idyllic island. Picoult brings home the terrors of Covid and the acute suffering of the victims. During this terrible time of the pandemic, we listened each day to the numbers of the dead. The actual work of the doctors and the support teams hide in the background. Picoult shows the full horrors of the pandemic.

[kjc__ · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wish You Were Here is bisected into two parts. Anything regarding the second part I can't say because that would spoil too much, but the first part is about a Sotheby's art dealer Diana who gets trapped on a remote island and plays therapist to a suicidal teenage girl.

Diana has a boyfriend—Finn—who's a doctor, a father (whom she was close with) who died a couple years ago, and a mother whom she has a tenuous relationship with—her mother wasn't present much during her childhood. She lives a structured, planned life, and everything is going accordingly and smoothly until she fumbles a real important deal for her career and accidentally gets stuck on an island on which she doesn't speak the language. Originally, she and Finn were supposed to go together as a vacation, but he's stuck at work and might as well not waste the ticket. This is all during Covid mind you, so it's a real bad time to be a doctor.

I don't want to spoil anything, but I feel bad for the Finn, as he did nothing wrong and really it's Diana's fault if anything; he cared for her all that time. Maybe I wasn't perspective enough, and I feel like there's a moral, but I don't know what it is?

[maggieflo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wish you were here
Diana O’Toole is preparing to leave on a holiday to the Galápagos Islands with her partner Finn Conlon in early 2020 just as COVID is declared a pandemic. He is an ER doctor and he advises her to go without him. She takes his advice and travels alone. The first part of the story is about her stay on the Island of Isabela, without her luggage, Internet or money. She is able to receive messages from Finn on the terrible conditions in the hospital, young and old patient being intubated. She is unable to communicate irate with him or her mother, a famous photographer, who is dying in an assisted living facility.
The second half can’t be recounted as it would spoil the plot but it is an interesting story about surviving COVID, the tricks the brain plays to survive, the after effects of the virus and it’s impact on relationships.

[bookappeal · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A standout among fiction that incorporates the COVID pandemic. I was annoyed by some minor details but otherwise impressed by women's fiction that goes beyond the usual domestic drama.

[Valbelane · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The truth is it's really great. I learned a lot about myself and the causes of my stress, irritation, and bad mood. Besides the exercises on how to overcome stress, it explains the importance of accepting yourself.

Highly recommended. (Translated from Spanish)

[thewanderingjew_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wish You Were Here, Jodi Picoult, author; Marin Ireland, narrator
Essentially, the novel has two parallel stories. The first takes up about half the book. Diana O’Toole works for Sotheby’s. She is involved in the sale of an important painting by Toulouse Lautrec. The painting is owned by Kitomi Ito, the wife of the famous entertainer Sam Pride, who had been murdered, years before. (The obvious parallel with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, felt a bit contrived). Diana and Dr. Finn Colson, her boyfriend, had planned a trip to the Galapagos, for their vacation. She was hoping that he would propose there. However, with the outbreak of the Covid 19 virus, Finn was unable to go. His hospital was being flooded with patients who contracted it, and it was expected to get much worse. Finn thought she should go alone. She would be safer there, away from him, since he was going to be with Covid patients. Because it was a totally unknown disease, there were few treatment options available. Soon the bodies did begin to pile up.

Diana goes alone to the Galapagos. She becomes stranded on Isabella Island, when all travel to and from the island is canceled due to the pandemic. The island is locked down, all businesses close. While on the island she meets Beatriz, a young, unhappy girl. Beatriz is a lesbian. Diana witnesses her cutting herself and tries to help her. Her father is Gabriel. He had been very rude to Diana, but eventually, his family takes care of her by providing her with a place to stay and also with some food. While she is stuck on the island, waiting to be able to return home, she learns that her mother, the very famous photographer, Hannah O’Toole, who is in memory care at a facility called The Greens, has contracted the virus; she is concerned, but not overwhelmed because they had not been close. Until her mother dies, she does not realize what she has missed..
The second story is about Diana’s experience when she contracts the Covid 19 virus. She has no memory of having been sick, but when she wakes up, after being on a ventilator, she learns that she is one of the few who have survived the virus after being intubated. Her road to recovery will take time, and she is impatient. She suddenly realizes that her sense of reality has been altered. She has had hallucinations and dreams and she is shocked to learn that they were not real; they had been so detailed. She believed that she had been gone in the Galapagos for months, not in the hospital for weeks. She began to question what was important in her life and what she wanted to do with the rest of it, since she no longer had her job at Sotheby’s. Because of the pandemic, the sale of the painting had been canceled, along with her job. She worried about her mental state as she questioned what was real and what was not. She was relieved to discover that her mother had only died in her imagination, but she wondered if her having had Covid, had a bigger purpose and meaning for her life. She began to contemplate making changes ,and she reached out to her best friend Rodney, a black homosexual, for his advice. He, too, had worked at Sotheby’s and had been let go.
I did not find Diana to be a likeable as a character. She seemed selfish and cavalier about exposing herself and others to the virus. She made foolish decisions in her real life and her dream state, decisions a person of her age and experience should have known better than to make. She knew that the pandemic decimated communities and broke families apart with grief. The ill were forced to die alone, shunned because of the fear of catching the disease from them. Their deaths were tragic, and they suffered terribly, since there was no way to alleviate their symptoms. In the beginning, unbeknownst to the medical community, some of the treatments made the patients worse and hastened their deaths.

While the author accurately depicts the overcrowded hospitals, the suffering of the victims because of the trial and error of the treatment during the early stages, she seems to make some snide remarks about the Trump administration, without mentioning names. She does not give credit where credit is due, regarding the development of the vaccine, and makes no mention of the fact that the following administration, led by Biden, promised to eliminate Covid and failed, even with the additional treatment options now available. She makes no mention of the fact that it began in Wuhan China, and simply is critical of the previous President Trump, without using his name, for calling it the Wuhan Virus. Although she takes the book into the future, she stresses mask usage which has largely been useless. Although, in the beginning, it was mostly the elderly who succumbed to Covid 19, today, all ages are suffering, and there are severe side effects from both the vaccine and the virus. Masking has made the population more susceptible to illnesses that have previously been rare in adults, like RSV, and though it had once been rare in children too, they are contracting it in increasing numbers.

The description of the pandemic and its effects on our country and the world, were largely authentic, but the novel felt contrived, from the use of the obvious allusion to the Lennons, to the need to include Beatriz, as a lesbian who cut herself, and the presentation of Gabriel, at first. as a toxic male. It felt as if the author had a checklist of progressive ideas that she had to insert, including her admiration for Jay Z and Meghan and Prince Harry. The use of the word privileged and her being referenced as white, in a comment from her friend, was also, I thought, unnecessary. The difficulty in finding a priest to give the last rights to Covid patients seemed an attack on religion, and it was not an issue I had ever heard of before, as a problem. I did hear that the Hispanic and Black community was hit harder because they worked in essential services, but also, I heard they refused the vaccine in greater numbers. The novel felt melodramatic and a bit overdone, not like the novels this author usually writes. Although it was well researched, the facts that were included seemed to be cherry picked in order to present her political point of view.

I did learn something about the side effects of the virus and/or the treatment that I had not known. I was pleased that mention was made of migraines and heart palpitations, since I have had increased migraines and PVC’s since I had the vaccine, but did not have Covid. I felt the confirmation was helpful. I had, however, never heard that some victims suffered from hallucinations or dreams that seemed to alter their reality. I had heard about the loss of taste and smell, the cough, and difficulty breathing. One escalating side effect, like heart ailments, was not mentioned at all. There was nothing mentioned about the side effects of the lockdown and its draconian measures that caused businesses to close, the economy to tank, and a rise in the crime rate. She did acknowledge that patients died, frightened and alone.

I must admit, I still wear an N95 mask in certain places and do not often go indoors with strangers. I eat outdoors in restaurants and if I am indoors, I limit the time to perhaps fifteen minutes. I believe I am protecting myself from the flu and other viruses, but truthfully, I believe that the only thing that prevents someone from getting Covid, is not being exposed to it. It is highly contagious. If you wear a mask, wear an N95. There are few people who have not had the virus, but many who have had it multiple times. There is no rational reason that exists at this time.

[librarylady23 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

woman goes on vacation without her partner during the corona pandemic and gets stuck in another country - he is a doctor and she is in art plot twist with what is actually happening

[pepperwings · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A super insightful book, with several new twists on what "self care" really means and how to approach things in a way they can be completed. This book is definitely aimed at women, but could be beneficial for all people, a lot of the advice is universal.

[terran_9 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of my favorite novels by Jodi Picoult. There are so many well-researched topics covered and characters that I cared for. Aspects of the art auction world are covered and the CoVid pandemic plays a major role in a surprising way. Diana O’Toole is an art specialist who negotiates the listing of a Toulouse Lautrec work, but is “furloughed” due to CoVid before the sale takes place. Instead she takes her planned vacation to the Galapagos Islands without her boyfriend, a surgeon who can’t leave New York during the pandemic
I love books like this where I learn something about a topic I’m not familiar with and this one covers several, the art world, the effects of living through CoVid on patients and health professionals, and the Galapagos Islands.

[romonko · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I shouldn't review this book in all honesty, but I did finish it, so I would like to record my thoughts. First of all, it was the longest 310 page book i have ever read. It felt like it took weeks to finish it, but it was only 8 days which is still a long time for me to finish a book of this size. I kept falling asleep with the book in my hand. Why did I finish it? Because it was a SweetReads book and i felt there had to be a reason for it to be included in the box. I totally disliked Diana from beginning to end. The descriptions of the Galapagos islands were the high point of the book for me. Ms. Picoult is a very good illustrative author. I will admit this is my first Jody Picoult book, and I was looking forward to reading one of her books. I keep reading about her books and know how popular she is. But unfortunately, I found the book very tedious, and it stretched my imagination as well as my patience to the breaking point. I'm sorry I cannot recommend this book. I gave it two stars because I finished it, but I've never been so happy to close the covers on a book as I was with this one. I know that this review won't be a popular one for those who follow my reviews, but a review means nothing if it is not written from the heart.

[jlford3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Burnout: Secrets to Unlocking the Stress Cycle examines stress from a variety of angles to help give women a clearer view on why they might be struggling with stress and what to do about it. (Spoiler: though your inner voice might be saying it's because you're lazy, dumb, or have bad time management skills, that's probably not the answer.) The authors start the book by looking at the internal, individual factors that lead to burnout. They move into the external factors that affect women's experience of stress with a particular focus on impossible-to-meet social standards, explaining that by recognizing those influences, women will be less likely to internalize them and judge themselves unfairly. They finish the book by emphasizing major strategies (though actionable plans are also discussed throughout the book) to cope with and even flourish in spite of life's challenges.

The book's major strength is the authors' humorous, encouraging voice that can explain scholarly research comfortably. They keep a strong focus on the reader's objective, which is to obtain effective strategies for feeling better. Each chapter ends with a few bullet-pointed major points, which is handy for readers who want to reference a tip later. The comprehensive nature of the advice, which moves from identifying an emotion or behavior, to the science behind it, to research-backed ways to address it and become healthier, makes this book feel different than other books that might talk about how exercise reduces stress without explaining why, or prescribe greater willpower without explaining the influence of sleep on motivation.

In sum, this book was like talking to a very smart, funny sister or best friend who has some great real-world advice and your best interests at heart. It was definitely worth my time.

-Review provided by my wonderful colleague Cara Marco! We received this book as an ARC from Goodreads.

[jennybeast · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I could have sworn that I reviewed this book -- but since my review vanished, I'll try again. Profoundly helpful, life changing. It really helped me to understand certain dynamics in my life, so that I can identify and change situations. It also equipped me with solutions to how to shed the stress I encounter. I loved the frank, humorous writing style, the useful case studies, the suggestions for how to improve things. Empowering to read and inspiring. Can't recommend it highly enough.

[marquis784-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It was March 13, 2020 where Diana was working her dream job at Sotheby’s in NY. Her life plan with Finn seemed to be falling into place as expected. That is, until the unexpected happened. Diana had been working hard to appease her boss Eva by commissioning a sought after piece of art. It was part of a painted series by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 1890 called Le Lit which features prostitutes in bed quiet intimacy. The seller Kotomi Ito remarks that “what you see is not what you’re really seeing”. She is conflicted about selling this controversial piece of art once valued by her husband Sam Pride who was murdered.

Meanwhile, Diana is readying herself for a long deserved vacation to the Galapagos with her long time boyfriend, Finn who worked as a resident physician. Their world is turned upside down when Finn informs her that there is a virus which is highly contagious and the hospital needs “all hands on deck”. Although she is disappointed that their expense paid vacation had to canceled she understood how important it was for Finn to focus on work.

Diana feels comforted when Finn suggests she go alone so their money wouldn’t be a total loss and she would be somewhere safe from the virus. Conflicted, Diana goes on a journey that takes her to places she could never have imagined. She meets and befriends native occupants as the island is in the process of “shutting down” like the rest of the world. In attempts to contain and find a cure for this pandemic of Covid-19 coronavirus, countries were limiting travel and instructing people to remain where they are.

While away Diana makes desperate attempts to maintain contact with Finn who is describing the trauma of watching people die daily from this virus. She felt like she was living in a bubble where her real life seemed so far away with no plan for when it would normalize. Eventually, there does seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s just not the light Diana had been expecting.

When Diana and Finn are reunited it seems that their time apart had altered their well planned future. The dreams of getting engaged and married and working her dream job all seemed less important. Surviving life amidst this pandemic was monumental for everyone, not just Diana and Finn. As such, many lives were changed forever, many dreams and expectations took unplanned turns so for the better and some not so fortunate.

At present, this is a “living” novel making it extremely difficult to review as I’m sure it was for the author to write. Many years from now people will read this book with same sense of bewilderment that we currently feel while reading about the Pandemic of 1918 or the 1883 epidemic of small pox. As unreal as it may seem while reading about it, living through it is an entirely different experience. Unfortunately, the political and social issues present all those years ago seem to provide a “plague” of its own that has yet to be “cured”.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it! (George Santayana-1905). In a 1948 speech to the House of Commons, Winston Churchill changed the quote slightly when he said (paraphrased), “those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

[janw_62 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm not a big fan or reader of Jodi Picoult but as with other Jodi books I've read, I found "Wish You Were Here" engaging. I can't say I learned a whole lot as we all mostly know more than we want about Covid. I thought the most interesting part of the book was learning about the Galapagos. Early in the book I found Diana the main character exasperating. Diana's optimistic over-planned life, naivete regarding Covid and almost everything else: eating forbidden fruit, disregard for potential natural hazards, all of it made me angry and irritated with Diana. I guess that's a credit to Picoult's writing but I wanted to like the novel's main character.

When the plot took a major turn back to New York I found myself disappointed. I was nevertheless engaged by the developments and gained some sympathy and understanding regarding the effects of trauma.

Regarding the end of the book. I was disappointed but I understand ending a story is one of the most difficult parts of authorship. The ending was logical if not completely satisfying.

[nyiper · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was so readable that I have to give it five stars. And of course an ending to any novel is entirely up to the author. I was left wondering what was going to happen to her business in the end....IF.....and Rodney, her good friend....again, IF....Not quite a spoiler alert but I did have questions that I can puzzle out for myself---that's really not the author's job to solve everything. Hard to know sometimes what a Happy Ending is all about. Was this one of those, or not?? I do agree with other reviewers that Picoult beautifully described in incredible detail the picture of Covid at the time she was writing. Where are we now???

[rmarcin-630843 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book set during the pandemic. I didn't know what to expect, as I had heard about the book, but not the subject. Diana and Finn are a couple, planning to head to the Galapagos. Then the Covid-19 pandemic hits, and Finn, a resident, has to work at the hospital. He encourages Diana to go without him. When Diana gets to the island, everything is shut down. Fortunately, a local woman offers her shelter and food. Diana spends weeks on the island, waiting for the time for her plane to return her to NYC.
What happens next is shocking. As always, Jodi Picoult throws something at you that you were not expecting. Brilliant!

[maryreinert · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Though not particularly a Jodi Picoult fan, I did enjoy this book. About the end of the first section, I was beginning to think everything was a bit too pat, but then the second section shed a totally different light on the story.

This is really a story of Covid and how it affects the body and the mind in so many ways. The main character, Diana O'Toole is believable in her confusion about her experience and in the relationship to her mother who is dying.

Hard to write without giving away the main plot of the book.

[shazjhb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not bad for the first COVID book. The themes of coping after a tragic event are the somewhat the same