I LOVED THIS BOOK. From start to finish I was absolutely mesmerized. This was such a emotional book that explores so many aspects of different relationships. Such a journey this book was.

"Between ourselves and the world are a million stories, and if we don't know which among them are true, we might as well try out those that are most humane, most generous, most beautiful, most loving."

I go into books blindly. And all I knew about Nathan Hill's tour de force "Wellness" was that it centered on a Gen-X couple living in Chicagoland in both the 1990s and present day.

And, while a simple premise, Hill's incisive, probing prose elevates a tale to the next level, and the majority of it really does work.

You could make an argument that Hill's sophomore magnum opus is a great American novel of the 2020s, and you would not be too far off. With tender characters and an acute narrative voice, Hill uses the marriage of Jack Baker and Elizabeth Augustine to explore a kaleidoscope of themes: mental health, truth in art, defense mechanisms, motherhood, the placebo effect, the definition of beauty, finding your purpose, self-fulfilling prophecy, social media - oh, the list goes on. Hill examines how we live, what we perceive wellness to be, and at least alludes to a more organic landscape.

Do all of these variegated topics come together to make a cohesive whole? Surprisingly, it's pretty close - and this is coming from me, a reader who has always struggled with longer tomes outstaying their welcome. This book is 600 pages, and I felt that all of the twists and turns really did matter. I would call them "relevant tangents," and by exploring the characters' background and motivations, we get a more complete tapestry of this world, a world that looks like just like yours and mine - because it is.

(Hill also provides perhaps the most searing indictment of social media algorithms I have ever read, claiming that "Information overload is the new hungry lion." Is it ever.)

By the end of it all, do we know exactly what wellness is? Perhaps, but it would be too pithy to encapsulate it in a single sentence. Yet one character comes close: "If you cling too hard to what you want to see, you miss what's really there."

May we all enjoy what is in front of us and savor every sunset. Perhaps that is the truest path to wellness after all.

In "Wellness," author Nathan Hill crafts a bittersweet love story spanning decades.

In the bustling streets of 1990s Chicago, Jack Baker, a visionary photographer hailing from Kansas, finds himself at odds with conventional expectations regarding his craft. Embracing Polaroids as his medium of choice, Jack's avant-garde spirit clashes with pragmatic inquiries about the purpose of his work. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Augustine, a multi-major student at DePaul University, captivates Jack's heart with her intellect and charm. Their journey unfolds against a backdrop of shifting fortunes and societal trends. From humble beginnings to the heights of success, the couple navigates the complexities of life's choices and compromises. As Elizabeth's career in psychological research blooms, Jack's struggles as an adjunct professor underscore the challenges of their mismatched financial circumstances.

The novel delves into themes of love, ambition, and the compromises we make along life's journey amidst the satire of contemporary culture. With sharp wit and keen observation, Hill skewers everything from academic pretensions to societal norms, offering a poignant reflection on the human condition.

Ultimately, "Wellness" serves as a warmhearted exploration of the compromises we make in pursuit of happiness and reminds us that while love may not conquer all, it certainly provides a solid foundation for navigating life's complexities.

Seems like WELLNESS is everywhere right now (thanks Oprah!), and for good reason — I loved it!

I was initially unsure how I would feel about this 600+ page tome. I read THE NIX, Hill’s debut novel a few months ago, and while I liked it, I didn’t love it as much as I was expecting to (although I do find myself thinking about it a lot, so maybe it’s growing on me?).

WELLNESS follows Jack and Elizabeth, a couple who meet in 1990s Chicago through the city’s grungy art scene. Fast forward twenty years later and the couple, who originally planned to take the world by storm, feel that their lives have gotten a bit stagnant. Elizabeth is struggling with raising their young son, while Jack flounders in his career as a professor who just can’t seem to get ahead. As the couple is confronted with wellness cults, bizarre detox diets, and strange social media occurrences, they realize that they’ve grown father apart than they ever thought possible, and must face their demons, from career woes to childhood trauma, to come back together.

If you decide to read this book, go in knowing this: it’s long and occasionally rambly, but it works SO well, with a payoff that’s beyond worth it. The level of research that went into this book is astounding. The writing is perfect for this type of storytelling. It’s smart yet easy to understand, and to be honest, the sheer amount of detail will make you feel smart, especially when you see the ways it all coalesces in the narrative. This book is very cynical, but I found it to be really funny and not at all heavy-handed. There’s a lot about art and psychology and technology in here, and I genuinely feel like I learned a lot from reading this.

Jack and Elizabeth are both incredibly nuanced characters. Hill creates characters who are compelling, frustrating, and wholly human, which I adore.

I really enjoyed this take on modern marriage and the emphasis of “wellness” in our culture and highly recommend. It would be a great book club pick (as long as you’re prepared for a 600-pager!) — obviously Oprah agrees.

This book just wasn’t for me it was way to cynical and to long but I can see why people enjoy it the writing was unique and entertaining and hop to read more from this author in the future. The characters in this book were to much for me I just really disliked them so made it hard to enjoy this book. I would like to thank net galley and the publishers for a chance to read this book for an honest review.

What a journey of a book this is to read. At its core it’s a love story between two deeply human (re: complicated and flawed) individuals who meet in Chicago in the early 1990s and focuses mainly on their mid-life marital crisis amidst the backdrop of building a new home, gentrifying Chicago neighborhoods, wellness fads, and so much more. This book took me months to read because it took so long for me to get into and even toward the end, the author’s lengthy deep dives into topics that clearly interest him but don’t really add to the plot made it tough. I had to speed read the algorithm section because I just wanted to know why they had gone viral! Frustrating in many portions but ultimately glad I read it. So much to think about, great research and ultimately a great story.

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for an advance copy of this book!

Deeply layered, enthralling story with characters you will not forget. Find time to invest and enjoy the ride, including all of the seemingly unrelated 'tangents' that somehow flesh out this exceptional work. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Before going any farther, I want you to know that I made three charges at "Wellness" before it caught with me. I didn't DNF it or delete it because I knew it would be good. And it is. Once I get in Elizabeth and Jack's heads I wanted to stay there and see where we went.

Elizabeth is a Ph.D in Psychology, I think, and she works for Wellness, a research company that studies the effects of placebos which they discover are pretty much the same as the impact of actual medicine. Patients are cured simply because they believe in the cure, they have found. If you can imagine where this will lead, it does.

Jack is an artist, whose work is based on his access to leftover art supplies because he can't afford to buy anything new. It's the '90s, and both have taken refuge from godawful families to live their own lives in Chicago. They fall in love, marry, and have a child. Nothing is easy for them, but each character is compelling enough to keep you settled in their noggins and following their life stories.

But being in their heads means that you get EVERYTHING going on with them. There's a huge
digression into the Facebook algorithm and how it entraps Jack's dad in the Flint Hills of Kansas into
becoming a conspiracy extremist. Some of it is entertaining but I suspect you'll be skimming.

There's so, so, so much to "Wellness" that it's almost suffocating. There's a lovely scene where Jack's older sister takes him out to the prairie to sketch. Evelyn is a college art student and Jack is a wretched 9-year-old trying too hard to please. Evelyn's sketch expresses the heart of the land, while Jack tries to get everything exact. "You have to let it breathe," Evelyn tells him about his work.

I'd say that about this novel. A great deal of it is so marvelous, but there are parts that are equally numbing or bewildering. This would be an incredible book club pick--the conversation would go on till the wee hours--but it would be difficult to get enough people who made it through the 600 pages to have that sparky chat. "Wellness" is not for everyone, but there is enough to appeal to everyone. If that seems like an impossible comment, you get this book.

Many thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for a digital reply copy of this novel in exchange for my honest opinions.

Although I liked Nathan Hill's first book more, Wellness was well written and interesting on several different levels. Nathan Hill is a talented writer and I look forward to more by him.

I loved The Nix and I was so glad to have another novel by Nathan Hill. Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the ARX! And… it exceeded my wildest expectations.

Wellness is smart, absorbing and has unique character development. It is an interesting take on modern marriage, love, and art - love recommending this to friends.

I know other people enjoyed this but I had to put it down half was through. It was long and convoluted and I couldn’t follow the blur between reality and….. futuristic descriptions?

"Holy shit."
That is the review I posted on Goodreads right when I finished and it continues to be the only words I have to explain just what Nathan Hill has accomplished here. It's also, I suspect, why the two-word review has garnered more "thumbs-up" reactions from Goodreaders who agree. When book-recommending algorithms, and generators ask for what I'm looking for, this is the book I serve them.

Because The Nix is my all time favorite book I had the highest of hopes for this sophomore novel. Boy was I not disappointed. Nathan Hill writes the most complicated characters in the absolute most hilarious way possible and says things in such a way that you KNOW what he means but you could never possibly come up with the wording yourself to express it. This is a multilayered story about a man and woman who on the surface have the same problems as every other married couple but diving into their histories we find out so much more. The humor is elite and the chapters on a Boomer learning Facebook should earn every award on its own. Bravo Nathan Hill, you’re still my fav.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Knopf for providing me with an advance e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book was unfortunately not the follow-up to The Nix I was so looking forward to and I’m afraid I had an unfair expectation going in to reading this that simply made it hard for me to get invested in the storyline. It was very drawn out to me and just not the book for me but I have not doubt other readers will love this!

Nathan Hill's sophomore book, Wellness, wowed me with its varying depictions of marriage, art, and forming one's identity. These generic topics are interwoven with complex details that take the book from mundane to extraordinary. Gentrified Chicago, the burning of the Great Plains, a swingers club, mommies groups, psych labs, bat guano, angry elderly parents, and the titular wellness morph into a portrait of two spouses over two decades.

Recommending to friends and fam!

This book will not be for everyone. It is long and could have used some judicious editing. I loved Nathan Hill’s previous novel The Nix. Some of the character descriptions and scenes in Wellness were beautiful. I especially loved the opening scenes describing the way the two main characters meet and fall in love. I also enjoyed scenes giving both of their backstories which are woven throughout the novel. What I could have used less of were overly long descriptions of hypertext and algorithms. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read an advanced reader’s copy. I’d recommend it for fans of literary fiction and fiction set in Chicago.

I loved Nathan Hill's book The Nix so much and I was so excited to receive an Advanced Reader Copy of Wellness, but I found myself in the wrong headspace to read such a long book at the time I received it. I read the first 50 pages or so, and I've heard wonderful things about it. Nathan Hill's writing and storytelling are wonderful and I'm looking forward to having the time and attention to dedicate to this book.

The Nix was a 5-star read for me and I have no doubt Wellness will be too

Really great book! Complex story and wonderful writing. I had heard lots about it and I'm so glad I got to read it!

Thank you NetGalley and Nathan Hill!

A big juicy novel about contemporary marriage, parenthood and coming of age. I really appreciate Hill's pointed commentary on everything from gentrification to social media algorithms.

Wellness is a captivating exploration of the complexities of modern life. The characters are rich and multifaceted, each grappling with their own inner demons and desires. I found this compelling and insightful that offers a sharp commentary on contemporary society and the quest for fulfillment.