Wellness- A novel by Nathan Hill
Product details
Web ID: 17302210The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Wellness is like a turbo-charged GPS for the soul, packed with juicy nuggets of wisdom on memories, marriage, and the cosmic tightrope act of staying sane in a world drowning in information overload, fake news, and more choices than a cereal aisle. Prepare yourself for an epic journey through the labyrinth of self-narratives and the exhilarating sport of cherry-picking the parts that make us shine while conveniently sweeping the rest under the rug. This mind-expanding novel will make you question whether we're all just master architects of our personas, shaping our lives and relationships with every thought and decision we make. Now, when I read Nathan Hill's previous gem, "The Nix," and now "Wellness," I couldn't help but nod furiously, underline like there's no tomorrow, and stand in awe of his ability to give voice to the very thoughts, ideas, questions, and gripes that I regularly ponder. He holds up a mirror to our world, offering characters as a prism through which we can reflect upon how we live today and what we aspire to be.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Too much nothing
This was tough, but I finally opted to cut my losses and DNF’d Wellness at 30%. It started out great but quickly became overly verbose and I lost interest. I had to laugh at some parts I read such as the “onboarding” process at the university. (I’ve worked at universities and understood completely!) The final straw for me was a long chapter about a toddler meltdown, complete with reference citations. Who puts reference citations in a novel? And there’s even a bibliography at the end of the book. A good editor really needed to cut a lot of the non-essential content, which took readers out of the plot line. My 30% was the equivalent of a short book, given that Wellness is almost 700 pages long. Giving up on this one makes me sad, but I had to do it. Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book, although I was rather late to it. I bounced between the ARC and the published audiobook, courtesy of my public library. The narrator, Ari Fliakos, did a good job with the various voices for the portion that I listened to All opinions are my own.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Wellness
A disturbing view of two young lovers who marry and navigate the hazards of life. Jack and Elizabeth secretly watch one another from the cover of a darkened apartment. They finally meet and begin a roller-coaster saga that every individual rides. Nathan Hill brilliantly portrays both Jack and Elizabeth an the hurdles they must jump in this blasé life. And the secrets that each family hides from view and the rest of the family. A fabulous journey through life and death and our perspective of life.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Entertaining but overly long and uneven
Elizabeth and Jack have been together for twenty years. They met in 1993, Chicago, when they were both neighbors in an apartment complex located in a fringe neighborhood that catered to a community of budding young artists and college students. They were both recent arrivals in Chicago; she, a transplant from all-over the North East, he, coming from Kansas. They were both fleeing their previous lives and, when they met, it was love at first sight. But lately, Elizabeth has started to doubt that they were ever meant for each other, that their marriage is built to last, which leads them down rabbit holes that may have unforeseen consequences. I had a complicated reading experience with Wellness. On one hand it is very well written, with easy, flowing prose. A novel in episodes, the chapters are styled as essays that, together, read like a novel, but somehow the result is too scattered, touching on many themes that, though topical, are addressed, then abandoned, the thread only to be picked up again in a much later chapter. I ended up becoming annoyed with this structure, the book’s length—it could have been a lot shorter—, and the lack of (apparent) focused direction. On the other hand, there’s plenty to like, for it is a novel that touches on a range of issues ranging from polyamory vs. monogamy, parenting, midlife ennui, wellness cures, child misbehavior, parental neglect and abuse, internet addiction, etc, all without missing a beat. There were amazing passages related to the invention and commercialization of condensed milk and the origins of the Shepaug Rail Line, courtesy of the Augustines (Elizabeth’s family), the rationale behind the burning of the prairie, and the conventional thinking behind the scant depiction of the prairie in paintings despite the prairie having spanned pretty much the expanse of continental America at one point in time, and how the Internet and Facebook algorithms work. Those passages made for fascinating reading. Despite Elizabeth, Jack, and Toby being the main characters in the story, they were not that interesting compared to some secondary characters such as Elizabeth’s father, Lawrence, Ruth, and Evelyn Baker, Brandie, Kate, and Kyle. For me, they gave a lot more depth to the novel than the protagonists did. Overall, Wellness is a novel with a lot to say. It doesn’t work on all levels but it’s interesting nonetheless. Thanks to the publisher for granting me access to a digital copy via Netgalley.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Wellness requires balance.
Nathan Hill’s new novel, Wellness, is a smart love story. There are no simple tropes, the obstacles the central couple, Jack, and Elizabeth, must overcome are largely of their own making, and mostly because they simply think too much. The couple is obsessed with the foundations of human behavior and teaching the nuances of it to the reader. While the relationship between Elizabeth and Jack is endearing and fascinating, their analysis, especially in the murky middle of the book, tends toward tedium. They dwell so intensely on the fields of their interest and research them so extensively…both the characters and the author…that the reader has to resist the temptation to treat the novel as a scholarly work and actually skip the long explanations and examples (footnoted!) and get to the parts where they remember that they CARE about Jack and Elizabeth, their heartbreaking childhoods and how they deal with the fallout as they try to raise their own son. I urge you, if you get so far into the book that you want to put it aside, don’t. You will not be able to forget Jack and Elizabeth and Toby, and if you finish the book, you will find yourself wanting to have discussions with them, and everyone you meet, about the world you’ve left when you close the cover. The pay-off is worth it. Bravo, Nathan Hill. This book was published September 19, 2023. Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for the review copy.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Not my cup of tea
Not my cup of tea. Nathan Hill is a talented writer, and the book is full of clever ideas, but the combination of Franzen-like sprawling family drama and not-so-subtle social satire made it impossible for me to become invested in the fates of the main characters. I could not like nor feel connected to them and their problems, which is a serious issue in the case of a 600-page novel. Thanks to the publisher, Knopf, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
The next big thing in books!
“She understood how many people a single person could, over a lifetime, be.” Wellness is Nathan Hill’s sophomore novel. The book centers around Jack and Elizabeth, a married couple entering middle age. Themes explored include marital satisfaction (or dissatisfaction as the case may be), parenting, and how our parents shape us, and a look at wellness culture including placebos, love potions, and manifesting. This just touches on some of the topics in this book— there was a lot of ground covered, and I learned a lot and thought a lot while reading Wellness. I really enjoyed this book. Hill’s writing is beautiful and the book flows nicely. I would encourage readers not to be intimidated by the length— I was able to read this fairly quickly and the length helps to explore a variety of issues and really develop the characters of Jack and Elizabeth. Wellness is easily a contender for one of the best books of 2023. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Hard to review
Wellness by Nathan Hill I did my best to like this book, but only liked some of it. It started out fine introducing Jack and Elizabeth. It fell apart for me with so many interruptions with other extraneous topics. Sometimes it was so poignant and then??? The relationship of Jack (likable) and Elizabeth(not so much) is part of it, but what was the point of the rest? I have to go with the 3 star review crowd and wonder what the 5 star crowd was getting that I missed. It’s just not an easy book to review, and I’m sorry for that. I thank #Knoff publishing and #NetGalley for this ARC for my review.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com