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Q&A with Jodi Picoult, author of Hollow Bones
Do you remember the first time you learned about Jodi Picoult? Because I certainly do. I was at sleepaway camp, and my bunkmates and I were all winding down for the night doing what teen girls at sleepaway camp do: crowd everyone onto one or two beds for a gossip session. Except one of my bunkmates didn’t join us. Instead, she was absolutely sobbing while furiously turning the pages of her book. Naturally, we needed to know everything about this book, so we had her recount the entire plot to us through her tears. And, if you couldn’t already guess, the novel was My Sister’s Keeper. We passed the paperback around for the next few weeks, each of us breathlessly discovering for ourselves why there’s no author quite like Jodi Picoult.
Two decades later, I am so excited to share that today’s Worth the Read is an exclusive Q&A with the queen of heart-wrenching family fiction herself. Ahh! Her 30th novel, Hollow Bones, hit shelves this week, and, let me tell you, reading it brought me right back to the summer I discovered her. It’s not just because a fan fave from My Sister’s Keeper is a major player in Hollow Bones, but because I genuinely couldn’t put it down. The night I got my advance review copy, I was up until 2:30 a.m. reading (much to the puzzlement of my cat). Emotionally, Hollow Bones reminded me of that first discovery of just how much contemporary adult fiction could make me feel.
But this book hit me personally for another reason, too. Hollow Bones reckons with the emotional legacy of 9/11, and as a born-and-raised New Yorker, that part of the story landed especially hard. Although I was only 10 on that fateful day, I remember it clearly, and I remember how it changed the only city I’ve ever called home. Revisiting that tragedy through Picoult’s ever-compassionate lens felt like I was having my hand held during a difficult anniversary, and I’m grateful to her for that.
And believe it or not, that’s still only part of what makes this book so affecting. There’s another major element of the novel that is frighteningly timely, but to mention it would be to spoil the reading experience for you. We don’t touch on it here, so just know that this is a fully spoiler-free zone.
But enough from me. I know you’re eager to hear from Jodi Picoult herself! Keep reading to learn more about her research process, why the next national emergency might be even scarier than you think (yikes), which seventeen up-and-coming authors she recommends, and her two favorite books of 2026 (it’s a tie!).
P.s. Please enjoy this iconic video of her explaining how to pronounce her name.
Credit: Jesse Dittmar
Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of thirty novels, including By Any Other Name, Mad Honey (co-authored with Jennifer Finney Boylan), Wish You Were Here, The Book of Two Ways, A Spark of Light, Small Great Things, Leaving Time, and My Sister’s Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband.
Hollow Bones
Out now
After losing her mother on 9/11, Molly grows up to run Rhode Island’s emergency preparedness department, where she plans for every disaster imaginable. But when a new crisis shakes her family, she’s forced to confront just how little we can prepare for life’s unexpected turns.
As soon as I realized I was setting the book in Rhode Island—where My Sister’s Keeper was set—I knew I wanted him as a character. It felt like giving a little gift to my longtime readers.
Q&A with Jodi Picoult, author of Hollow Bones
The full Q&A with Jodi Picoult is behind this wall!
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