Books set during covid

[Wildchild60s]

I read a lot of contemporary fiction, nothing especially highbrow. In two recent novels there was passing reference made to covid as a time in the characters' recent past. In one the character had taken up baking as a new hobby during lockdown. In another the character (who was one of the murder victims) had become increasingly isolated during lockdown.
This set me off wondering if anyone has come across novels set right in the middle of the pandemic, where all the restrictions we all lived under were an essential part of the plot, having such a huge impact on people's personal and professional lives?

I absolutely loved The Fell.

She is an extraordinary writer and that book weaves together so many of the ways ordinary humdrum lives were laid bare and raw, uncovering poignant feelings and finding people growing and falling apart, falling apart and surviving.

Really evocative. And true of so many women’s lives.

@sonnybeaudelaire I said this further up the thread. What did you think about the ending of this?

I loved Ghost Wall but.found The Fell really bleak!

Consider yourself kissed is a great book about a couple where one of them is a political journalist in the 2010s and I think has a covid section.

Fourteen Days (already mentioned) worth persevering - ended very differently to what I anticipated.

@PickledOnionOverdose - I thought it was a neat and sombre way to end, and appropriate given the severity of Covid in NYC - and as Nomorecoconutboosts said, rather unexpected.

The really interesting aspect to me was the different voices all contributing to the single story (as opposed to a collection of short stories). I am definitely not sufficiently well read in US literature to be able to do this, but I imagine it would be fun to try to guess the author of each chapter as you are reading.

Came to say this. One of the best books I’ve ever read.

Slightly off brief, but Not Forgetting the Whale by John Ironmonger is absolutely excellent.

This book aside i can't imagine ever wanting to read something set during covid.

Not a novel, but "The Marmalade Diaries" by Ben Aitken is about an elderly widow and a younger male lodger during 2020, highlighting some of the futile absurdities we had to suffer, while Downing St had a big party.

@sonnybeaudelaire it was not the ending I expected at all. For some reason it really upset me and has made me remember that book alot more than most other recent books I have read.

I was going to mention these two. I loved Lucy By The Sea, but wasn't overly fond of Tom Lake. I actually abandoned it halfway through...

Gary Shteyngart's Our Country Friends - set in the US during covid with a lockdown situation being central to the plot. It's very funny and the American context far enough removed for it not to be too much of a painful reminder (as a Brit, at least).

Came to suggest Ann Patchett. I enjoyed that.

I thought The Fell was good too. Really, really evocative and thought provoking.

Genuinely surprised to read it wasn't well received

I was about to suggest this one