RATING: GOOD
SPOILERS!!!
This is an interesting and original novel. Diana works at Sotheby's and lives with her boyfriend, Finn, who is a doctor. From her past we know that Diana had a very special relationship with her father, who was a conservator and died the year before. Her relationship with her mother is more complex. Hannah was an absent mother while she was growing up, as she was a prestigious photographer and was always travelling for work. Now Hannah has early-onset dementia and is in a care home.
Diana and Finn plan to spend a week on the Galapagos Island. Then Covid spoils their plans because Finn is needed at the hospital, so he tells Diana to travel there on her own. Diana agrees, and she arrives on the island just when authorities are about to close it, but she decides to stay. The hotel she had booked is closed, so a local woman, Abuela, lets her stay in a small apartment next to her own home. Diana is quite isolated as her phone does not work and Internet is patchy, and apart from that, she does not speak Spanish. Diana gets to know Abuela's grandson, Gabriel, who used to be a tourist guide and now runs a farm, and his daughter, Beatriz, who Diana notices is cutting herself. Beatriz and Diana become good friends, and the girl confesses that she is miserable because she is in love with a girl, Ana María, the daughter of her host family when she is living near her school, but Ana María turned her down after a while, claiming that her family wouldn't support her. Diana helps Beatriz, and she and Gabriel become closer. They even spend one night together, and Diana feels guilty about Finn. Then Gabriel takes her scuba diving, and she is trapped in a rip tide, and she knows she is going to die.
The second part of the book starts when Diana wakes up to discover that she has been very sick in hospital. She contracted Covid and has been in ICU for two weeks, and she realises that her life in Galapagos is nothing but a dream, a dream that she wanted to be part of. Diana slowly makes her recovery, and we discover that she is not happy the way she thought she was previously. The dream has made an impact on her. During this time she makes an effort to be with her mother, who in her dream died of Covid. In her lucid moments Hannah confesses that she left her daughter behind for work because she was terrified of making a terrible mistake. Hannah then comes down with Covid and dies, and Diana is totally devastated.
Diana knows that she wants to do something else other than work for Sotheby's. She has been furloughed, and she tells Finn that she wants to study again and do art therapy. Finn can't understand her. Diana turns Finn down when he proposes, and she tells him that he is not the one for her.
In the epilogue in 2023 Diana travels to Galapagos. Some things are identical to what she dreamed, but some things are totally different. We discover that she studied art therapy, and she now works as a therapist,, which she loves. She moved with her friend, Rodney, after she broke up with Finn, who is engaged to a colleague. Diana goes to see the tortoises, and she sees a baby tortoise fighting as it has fallen on its back, so she decides to help it and climbs a tree. Then there is a call 'Cuidado' and Diana looks back. This is the same way as when Diana met Gabriel. We know that Gabriel is not real, but maybe this is the start of meeting someone as good.
I loved the book very much. Strangely I was sad that Beatriz was not real and felt that absence from Diana's life. It was heartbreaking to read about Finn's experiences in hospital, which made me remember some very hard times during lockdown.
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