Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of Wellness by Nathan Hill.

Holy cow, just read this book, that's my review. It's long, but honestly, it could have been longer, and I still would have loved it so much. It got under my skin immediately. The way it unfolds in a way that is so unexpected, yet so painfully satisfying, slowly explaining questions that you didn't even know you had. It's just a rich, heartfelt, well written book, Hill puts so much care into his storytelling, it's worth the time.

A great piece of literature. I have not read Nathan Hill's debut novel The Nix, but after reading Wellness, his new release, I will definitely put The Nix on my TBR list. I do not usually read in this genre. I am a police procedural, mystery, women's fiction, and contemporary romance reader. But once in a while, I do step out of my comfort zone. In this case, I am glad that I did. This novel is deep. Having been through two divorces myself, the intricacies of marriage and family dynamics were not lost on me. Highly recommend.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a digital advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

3.5 stars (rounded up to 4).

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for providing me with an ARC of Nathan Hill's highly anticipated second book, Wellness.

Like so many other readers, I was absolutely enthralled with Hill's first book, The Nix, when it hit the shelves in 2016. I was amazed at Hill's ability to create deeply flawed characters who were still loveable. He's truly a master of brilliant run-on sentences. (Surely I am not the only one who still thinks about that one multipage run-on sentence of the internal dialog of the master gamer as he copes with the game's servers being down, right?) Needless to say, I had very high (and arguably unfair) expectations for Wellness. If the only considerations to the makings of a good novel were prose and character development, I would say Wellness is a 5-star read. Unfortunately, it's not (at least, not for me)--the story needs to be intriguing, too.

Before I go into more detail, I should mention that I had the opportunity to meet Nathan Hill on his book tour this month, when I was about halfway through Wellness. He was lovely, funny, and exactly what you would expect if you ever read any of his work. I learned that the idea for this book came from a short story he wrote back in college at the University of Iowa (in fact, I believe the first chapter is that short story). The two characters--Jack and Elizabeth--are college students who live directly across from each other in Chicago. Jack was an artist and Elizabeth was an aspiring psychologist. Their fascination for one another developed before they ever met--watching each other through their facing windows. (Side note: While I generally find Peeping Toms to be creepy AF, I think this was more tolerable because they were both spying on each other, unlike Joe Goldberg in You.) When Jack and Elizabeth finally wound up at the same bar one night, their whirlwind romance begins. Flash forward to twenty years later, Elizabeth and Jack are now married with a child (named Toby), living a life that is far from what they envisioned. When they first met, they could not untangle themselves from each other. Now, twenty years later, they are building their "dream home" with separate master bedrooms.

From the reader's perspective, their spark is gone. From Elizabeth's POV, she secretly contemplates whether there was even a genuine spark to begin with between them. "Every couple has a story they tell themselves about themselves . . . . For Jack and Elizabeth, that story was about falling in love at first sight . . . . But stories have power only insofar as they're believed, and suddenly, sitting there, . . . Elizabeth wondered if her and Jack's story wasn't in fact just another highly embellished placebo, just a fiction they both believed because of how good and special it made them feel."
Jack, feeling the shift in their relationship, does what any rejected (but desperate) person would do in his situation: He puts in the extra effort. This only makes him seem spineless/clingy/needy to Elizabeth.

Ultimately, I think this book is about love, marriage, the stories we tell ourselves, and how time wears away at all three of those things. Hill does a wonderful job playing with these themes in the book. However, he lost me with all the unnecessary excursions he took us on. I feel like he did this somewhat in The Nix, too, but they somehow tied into the plot or were entertaining enough to make me enjoy the diversions. I did not have the same experience reading Wellness. For example, there is a 40-page (!!!) section going into *excruciating* detail about Facebook's algorithm for promoting user engagement. Hill, at his book event, said he read through Facebook's patents to write this section. As a patent lawyer, I really commend him for doing that without getting paid to do it. Patents are boring AF and aren't written for those who do not possess ordinary skills in the art. Knowing how Facebook increases engagement to make more money through advertising added absolutely nothing to the story. I truly think that he wanted to include that section in his book so he could justify reading those boring, tear-inducing, utility patents. (Side note: Facebook's patents on their algorithms aren't actually telling of their code (which they keep as trade secrets). There is no requirement for a company to use the technology they disclose in a patent application, so I personally wouldn't consider a tech company's patents as a reliable source for determining anything about how their code is actually written.)

Facebook algorithms aside, I think there is a lot of good stuff in this book. He has an incredible ability to make his characters (and their multitude of issues) feel so relatable. There were parts that made me laugh out loud and others that made my heart wrench.

This novel tells the story of a relationship, from its heady beginnings between two very young people who felt out of place and lonely until they found each other, and afterwards were able to enter into the world of art students and college students who were part of a slowly gentrifying Wicker Park in Chicago. They were entirely wrapped up in each other, but in the present day, after marriage and a child and having put a sizable down payment on a condo in a renovated factory in a prestigious neighborhood, things begin to fall apart. Elizabeth, the scientist, points out that they are just at a natural low point in their relationship and she's happy to put space between them, insisting that the new place have separate master bedrooms. Jack, an artist and adjunct professor, is much less sanguine about the distancing. As they veer apart and then come together to try to refresh their marriage, it's not clear if they can stay together or if their relationship was ever on solid ground.

There's very little that author Nathan Hill isn't interested in and this novel digresses all over the place. Luckily, when he wanders off into, say, the history of artists depicting the American prairies or even how the Facebook algorithms work (something I have negative interest in) it is all worth reading and well-incorporated into the novel. Yes, this novel is longer than it *needs* to be, but cutting everything unnecessary out would make for a far less rich and entertaining book. He occasionally sends up people and situations in ridiculous ways, but always pulls the story back into its grounded center. And by taking the time to fully draw both Jack and Elizabeth's childhoods, as well as how their relationship and daily lives function, Hill makes this portrait of a marriage feel very real.

I was intimidated by the length of this book the first time I picked it up, but my goodness - I was wrong. I would have read this book for 200 more pages. The author clearly worked in all of the niche things in the world that interest him and this caused ME to be interested in these things, as well! It was just so darn fascinating and REAL feeling at every turn. The insight and introspection that Nathan Hill brings into his work is remarkable and I just really loved this book from start to finish. I will be buying everything he writes.

I think within this 625 page book is a 300 page book that I would be very interested in reading. Unfortunately, I’m not willing to push through all the many many tangents to get there. When I realized it was feeling like a chore to get back to this, I decided it was time to stop and DNF at 40%. Thank you very much to Knopf, Netgalley and Libro.fm for the multiple formats to read this.

I loved this book - so much depth put into the main characters, being drawn out slowly through the entire book. Despair and hope wrapped up together. Will be highly recommending it!

I loved this book. It delved into so many relevant topics that affect today’s society that I feel like anyone could relate to it on some level. At its core, it is a story of hope. I felt it could be a bit shortened. Sometimes he seemed to go on and on about things that needed less words. Other than that it was wonderful.

Wonderfully written,
funny, educational,
deep, big but well-paced.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌟

I write haiku reviews but am happy to provide more feedback.

3.5 stars

I’m sure there are some who will read Wellness in one sitting but I felt that there was such a variety of information dumping that I spread it out over time a bit. As the book progressed, it was almost like a series of short stories. We started with the genesis of Jack and Elizabeth’s relationship in the 90s. I felt that segment went by too quickly and then we were suddenly 20yrs into the future. The rest of the novel fills in that 20yr back history, plus their childhood experiences before they met, and then examines the present day situation so we can appreciate how they got from there to here.

Each time the book switched from one POV to the other, I was struck by how Jack and Elizabeth seemed to be on their own island, even when they were in the same room/house. It was a stark illustration of the current state of their union.

As for the info dumping, I did find that much of the social commentary resonated with me as a GenXer. We grew up without access to the internet so I think that lends itself to insatiable curiosity and tons of commentary for external consumption about anything and everything. To paraphrase a med school saying, it was a lot of “learn one, tell one”. Hill definitely spent a big chunk of this book sharing his thoughts post “Google research” on more subjects than I cared to count!
*thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for the advance reader copy for review.

Nathan Hill tackles a lot in his sophomore novel. I really enjoyed The Nix but I think Hill took everything that worked in his debut novel and expanded it in this novel, almost to a fault. The tangents in Wellness take up a lot of space in this novel and while some of them are totally relevant and necessary, I think a lot of them could have been condensed. They also jumped around within the timeline of both the main characters which made the storyline a little harder to follow. I found myself speed-reading through some of the more boring sections so I could get back to the main storyline a little faster.

All that aside, I did really enjoy Jack and Elizabeth's characters. I found their character growth super interesting and the dynamic between both of them was almost a character in itself. Hill clearly put a lot of thought into all his side characters because they're almost fully-fleshed out and unforgettable. I mean, Brandie alone was a wild ride.

I can see how some of Hill's lessons in the book are interesting, but as with most of this book they could have been a little condensed. A lot of this book could have been stripped down or cutback without losing the charm. Overall this book was a lot of fun, it was just long though.

The book opens with a little uncomfortable “stalking through the windows” scene. It does redeem itself by showing it isn’t a one-way thing happening, so okay, let’s move on… And we jump to 20 years in the future. Literary genre can do whatever it wants, right?
Our two lovebirds, who fell in love by watching each other through their apartment windows, are now unhappily married with a kid. Tough, but good hook there because I was actually curious about what the heck happened.
As we are trying to make sense of what’s going on to this “suburban dreams on the rocks” we have glimpses of Elizabeth’s struggles when Toby was a baby/toddler. Kudos to the author for actually doing a great job showing in a realistic way how so many mothers feel at that stage of motherhood. That was one of my favorite scenes (the other, being the couple’s fight by the end of the book with the omniscient narrator interjecting. That was hilarious.)
It was hard for me to have empathy for Elizabeth, because I knew from the beginning parenthood does not follow formulas or scientifical journals, so to see her try that route was painfully cringey. Also, the reason she begins to dislike Jack was plain silly, but I think the real reason was rooted on her belief that their relationship happened just because of the experiment she never shared with him, plus her upbringing. That latter explained a lot!
Speaking of which I thought the whole placebo part was interesting, but of course people wouldn’t like it.
Jack’s parents were horrible, no question. But showing only the bad Christians in literature has been used ad nauseam that has become a cliché at this point. Stop giving them the limelight. There is more of the good kind out there, not the ones in the mainstream media.
I have to say that I was actually delightfully surprised by the end of the book. It gave me hope and warmed my heart.
Things I missed: present day with Elizabeth’s parents. We got to see Jack in his childhood environment as an adult, I think it’d be helpful to also see Elizabeth’s instead of all those pages about her ancestors or the ones with how Facebook algorithms work.
All in all it was a good read.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for the arc! I gave this book 3.5 stars rounded up. Very well written, and some really interesting chapters.

What an interesting book, how The author Tie everything together and Made it work with different themes and concepts. The story It is bout. ELIZAB ETH. And Jack Limes told through their past. Jack's life was based in Kansas and nobody really uderstood. He was very Sickly. You have an older sister who is very much lover By her parents. I This birth was unplanned he was very sick right now siri is growing up. E l I z a b e t h It was a very interesting character because her family's past Was very tragic and ruthless. She grew up very alone because I kept moving around. They both met each other in chicago And Fill Oh love In love. They got marrie. They have a child named tob This little boy represented jack as a young child A lot of issues are in this book about how neighborhoods change how people act differently. When you're young, everything is possible. But as you get older you realize things can change every night. I also like how Jack's father Lawrence gotten involved with Facebook. I thought that was pretty Interesting put that in the book. Jack's wife r R u n a center called W e l l n e s. Together, I'm thinking of the book and it's all tied together.

I seem to be in the minority on this one. I found this dry and dragging. I loved the Nix and had high hopes for this one. A novel (very long one at that) following a couple who meet during their artistic college years and now 20 years later married life has them re-evaluating their lives, their connection their pasts. The book centers around "wellness" through the different stages in the couples lives. Jack an artist and his wife Elizabeth who works for a wellness company that tests placebo effect to test in various ways in peoples lives. If you tend to lean towards highbrow type books and Franzen this may be one for you.

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.

I really wanted to like this book but it had too many slow parts sounding too technical. I wanted more of Elizabeths marital story

Definitely one of the best books I have read in a long time! A wonderful multi-layered story about a couple and their respective families. I love the extensive bibliography at the end and how citations were included in a specific section of the book. Very unusual for fiction.

I seem to be in the minority here that as much as I thoroughly enjoyed The Nix, Nathan Hill's debut novel, his sophomore effort with Wellness fell completely flat for me. I am not denying that Hill is an excellent writer. His prose is gorgeous and he captures life and marriage extremely well. I just simply did not like the characters and although I've been married for nearly twenty years with two children, I could not relate to the problems that Jack and Elizabeth had. Basically, I found their relationship completely toxic and even though I know the point of the story is satirical, I did not care to learn what happened to them. Much of the plot seemed to wander and honestly, the extremely long chapter on social media algorithms, although interesting, was way way too long. I wish there had been a greater tie in with Elizabeth's Wellness clinic and her personality and childhood background like there was with Jack and his photography. I personally would have cut about 300 pages from the novel and it would have done a better job of achieving what I think it set out to do.

Obviously, this book has gotten a lot of acclaim and I truly believe it's more of me being a mood reader and just not feeling this one at the moment. However, I do see a lot of literary merit for the right reader. I just wasn't it.

Thank you to NetGalley, Nathan Hill, and Knopf for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Nathan Hill’s writing is extraordinary. I found myself asking if I was smart enough for this book multiple times. That said, there was SO much in depth exploration of every modern relationship and family concept known to our generation that I found myself bogged down in words many times—words and research. It made this lengthy novel feel even longer at certain points. That said, this is a BRILLIANT exploration of marriage, parenting, social media, community and “wellness”. I am haunted by multiple passages of this book, and know it will stay with me for years to come. If you get to page 80 and it isn’t working for you, it won’t work, so don’t attempt. Otherwise, the payoff is worth it.