I'm currently getting my PhD in Health Behavior, so reading this novel felt like a personal affront (in a good way). I cannot say enough good things about this book, except that I want to take Nathan Hill out for coffee and tell him more literature about child feeding practices, and that I'm assigning it to my undergraduate class in Epidemiology to see if they can apply the principles of study design and the social determinants of health to the novel. I want a classroom set. Nathan please hit my line.

In his sophomore novel, Hill took a very interesting route in exploring a relationship. Jack and Elizabeth have specific ideals when they are in their 20s. But after 20 years of marriage, they need to explore themselves and their relationship to understand who and where they are.
I had a lot of trouble relating to the personalities and communication styles of the main characters while reading this novel. I wanted to know a lot more about how things would end up for them, but the novel explored the characters' and the characters' family's pasts a lot more than I would have anticipated, providing a rather Freudian reasoning to their issues. While I might sound frustrated with this novel, all the points I make are more for discussions sake and I really wish I could discuss things with the author! I did really like the way things were explored and found it extremely unique. I also really loved the psychology trivia that came with it. I have a feeling this will be making my Top 10 of 2023.
The audiobook really made this chunky novel fly by, otherwise I might have been intimidated by the length of it.

As much as I loved Nathan Hill's The Nix, I expected this book to be a home run for me. Unfortunately, it missed the mark entirely. I know that I have the unpopular opinion here, and in reading other people's reviews, it almost makes me want to give it another chance...almost. Perhaps when I'm in a different headspace it'll connect with me.

But for now, I cannot even force myself to finish the book. Usually if I'm not loving a book by page 100, I'll DNF (but keep in mind this is extremely rare for me, and I probably only DNF 1 out of every 200 books I read). With this book, because I really enjoyed the opening chapters and knew I was a fan of this author, I read over 300 pages before calling it quits. But I was bored out of my mind for most of them. While I appreciated the points the author was trying to make about so many different topics, many of the tangents were so long, detailed, and involved that I just completely lost interest. I found myself skipping paragraphs, which then led to me skipping pages. It was at that point that I realized that I didn't care about the characters or what happened to them (which bummed me out because I was initially very invested in their story). I couldn't see the book going anywhere in the next 300 pages if it hadn't gone anywhere in the first 300.

If the story and writing style that the book started with had continued throughout, I think I could've enjoyed the story that was being told. But something about this style of storytelling just didn't connect with me and it just became really unenjoyable for me.

That all being said, the vast majority of the reviews for this book are glowing, so take my review with a grain of salt.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

We come into this story getting a part of the backstory about how Elizabeth and Jack met. While the initial story grabbed my attention, the story itself felt disjointed and way longer than it needed to be. There were a lot of deeply important topics and conversations that were discussed throughout this book, but the manner of the storytelling just wasn't my cup of tea.

I would definitely recommend this title to anyone looking to explore modern marriages, relationships, and families.

I haven’t stopped thinking about this book since finishing it! This is a book that has me constantly talking about it with my partner.
I loved the reflections on aging, parenting, marriage, and friendships. The mom’s approach to research and parenting hit a little too close to home. It was wonderful! This is a looong book but I loved every page. A favorite of 2023 for sure.

A heck of a book. The plot is alternately kinda nothing and painfully cringe-inducing (count me out for plot arcs driven by awkward social interactions and anxiety porn) but the book is littered with moments that, as a person in a marriage and with children, really hit home. The book bounces back and forth throughout the main characters' lives, which meant it was often bracketing my own stage in life; the bits about parts I've lived through were very resonant, which meant the bits about parts that are still in my future needled into my brain as things to look forward to (and/or work to forestall). In particular this book had some of the best writing about very-early-parenthood that I've encountered. Not sure if it'll hit as hard for people outside of that age or choice of lifestyle, but for me it really worked.

Absolutely one of the best books I have read this year. This book is devastating and beautiful at the same time. We learn about the main characters Jack and Elizabeth through flashbacks to their childhoods throughout the book. When we first meet them, they are living separately n Wicker Park in Chicago in the 1900's (a place I lived briefly and definitely hung out in at the same time), and I enjoyed the nostalgia trip to places I had been and only a few still are going strong today. At times, this book was hard to read and the reason I say this is it was like holding a mirror up to myself and seeing the parts of me I don't like to see - particularly the passages of Elizabeth being a mother to a son and her need for control, perfection, needing to obsess about how to be a perfect mother to set your son up for future success in life. This book is a moving journey on what it means to be a child, a parent, a partner who keeps reaching for the brass ring of the American Dream. In the midst of this book is an incredible passage about how Facebook and social media creates algorithms that change what you see and from whom to create confirmation biases. This was a book I kept putting down because I did not want it to end even though as I mentioned, it was an emotionally difficult read for me. I ended up caring for the characters and cried at the end. I highly recommend this book!
Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, for an ARC and I left this review voluntarily.

I found this a really compelling book. It's well-written with complicated characters with difficult pasts that are brought to light at various points of the book. The timeline moves through several years of a married couple's lives interspersed with flashbacks, letting you get to know the character a little at a time and really only understanding them at the end.

One thing I found distracting was the in-depth tangents that happened periodically throughout the book, the largest of which was tens of pages about how the Facebook/social media algorithms work. The female lead is a psychology researcher and often talks about studies, but it makes sense in the context of the story and and is revealing about the character. The algorithm section felt a bit overextended.

Overall, though, it's well-worth a read, especially if you're a fan of stories that take place across someone's life. There are mundane, everyday life parts and there are shocking event flashbacks. Thanks to the author, both are interesting to read.

Wellness follows Jack and Elizabeth, a couple that’s been married for 20 years. Their relationship is falling apart, and the reader watches as they try to heal their marriage. Jack and Elizabeth’s marriage is at the center of this story, but this is also a book about the absurd ways our society pursues wellness and happiness.

I thought the writing in this book was wonderful. I love how detailed it is. The writing style made me want to slow down and make sure I appreciated every single word, every single description. It held my attention so well that I finished it in 5 days. I never finish long books quickly (for me a “long” book is anything over 450 pages) because of my aversion to them, but I never wanted to put this one down. Elizabeth was a very well written woman, and if you’re a woman you know that reading women who have been written by men can be a nightmare. The way information is slowly revealed about the characters’ backgrounds and motivations made me feel like I was reading a book full of mini “plot twists,” and it made this very long read feel more satisfying and rewarding.

The representation of a struggling longterm marriage here felt very realistic to me. I am far too young to have any personal experience with a 20 year marriage or to have had friends to share stories of their own 20 year marriages with me. This felt like a look into the future for myself and my peers. I don’t actually know that this really was realistic but it certainly felt believable.

Elizabeth does research in psychology which is what I also want to do. Nathan Hill did a great job at demonstrating the ways that being completely obsessed with psych research can make you a little ridiculous and unrealistic. And I say this as someone who is also obsessed with psych research and had to pull herself away from it a little once she realized how ridiculous and unrealistic that environment can be. Knowing too much about psychology can be rough. For example I am always extremely stressed and my sleep hygiene is terrible. Unfortunately I know that always being stressed and having terrible sleep hygiene is quite literally deadly. Obviously this made me even more stressed. In college I was less stressed than I am now, but I slept terribly and spent so much energy on trying to improve that. Looking back I believe it did more harm than good. Elizabeth spends this entire book making her own life harder because she gets a little too intense over psych studies. It was fascinating and relatable. This book is full of an interesting combination of accurate psych information and inaccurate/outdated information. Based on information that’s revealed near the end of the book I believe this was intentional. Watching the way Elizabeth’s behavior is equally affected by both accurate and inaccurate research added another layer to the representation of how dangerous getting a little too obsessive about psych research can be.

Her behavior also reminded me of how in the past few years many people have become obsessed with learning (often inaccurate) pop psychology from TikTok and have adjusted their lives and mentalities in extreme ways based on the information they find there. That trend has been so disturbing to me, and I hope that in the next few years I start to see that topic being addressed in fiction books. Since making this account I’ve read a lot of books that satirized wellness, self help, and self care culture, but I’ve never read a book that’s done that with the world of experimental psychology. Like I said I hope I find many more books that do that. Please let me know if you’ve read any. I also love stories about marriage, so the reason I love this book is that it felt like it was written for me.

I was so rattled by the “impact score” for professors the COO of the university Jack works at created that I had to bring it up in this review. It really got to me and it’s stuck with me ever since. As someone who wants to work in academia I also become frustrated by the fact that academics often communicate in ways that are only relevant, accessible, and/or interesting to fellow academics (this can be intentional or it can be because they don’t have the resources to make their work more accessible to the public). It’s interesting how his “solution” to that issue was so cold and sinister. I don’t want to give specifics about what exactly this impact score is I’m referring to. If you read this book I want that to be the first time you encounter it. I want you to be as shocked as I was. Protecting education is something that’s so important to me, as it should be to everyone, so this was something that really bothered me.

Wellness isn’t a plot heavy book. It isn’t good for people who need solid plots. It has lots of deviations from the main story. Nathan Hill addresses so many topics in this book that have nothing to do with Jack and Elizabeth. It felt like he used this book as an excuse to discuss many of his personal interests. I love that but I know a lot of people don’t. At a certain point he spends a VERY long time talking about social media algorithms. I cannot express strongly enough how little I care about social media algorithms. Reading that chapter gave me a picture of how tedious this book must be for people who don’t care about wellness culture, psychology, or marriage. I encourage you to stay far far away from this book if you have no interest in those topics constant deviations from the central plot will bother you.

My biggest complaint is that I could tell that that big bad thing that happened in Jack’s past was supposed to heavily impact me and my perspective of the characters and story. I thought it was anticlimactic. I didn’t care.

As I’m sure you can tell, I highly recommend this book if it sounds interesting to you and you don’t mind when authors go on… tangents (for lack of a better word). I also recommend reading it as an audiobook. Ari Fliakos is excellent.

What. A. Masterpiece. This novel is nearly perfection. I have not read a book that had me so gripped, so moved, so invested in nearly 6 months. This is the kind of book that reminds me of why I identify as a reader. Brilliant! If I could change anything, it would’ve been that last chapter. Beautiful? Sure. But it just didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the book. But this will easily be a top 3 book of the year for me.

wellness was excellent. Even though it was long, the pages flew by. I loved the exploration of a relationship over decades, and the ups and downs of marriage. Also loved the Wellness culture exploration.

4.5 stars.

This is a long, ambitious novel, and it kept me locked in the whole time. At its most basic level, it’s a love story about a man and woman, who meet as young people after both moving to Chicago from their respective childhood homes, and who then get married, have a kid, and grow into middle age. We jump back in each of their histories to learn about their families and upbringings, we’re inside both of their heads in the present day, and we gradually start to see a more complete picture of a relationship that is going awry.

Hill writes about so many different subjects in the process of weaving this tale—art, gentrification, parenting, aging, social media algorithms, parent-child relationships, the psychology behind picky eaters, controlled burns in the American prairie, grief, personal reinvention, health fads, the placebo effect, and so much more.

I went in a little intimidated by the book’s length, but once I dove in, I never felt bored or disinterested. The ending felt satisfying and earned, but not unrealistically tidy. I loved The Nix (Hill’s previous novel) as well, and I’m already eagerly awaiting whatever he writes next.

I thought Nathan Hill's first book, The Nix, was a masterpiece of a book so I was so excited about this book. And I'm happy to say it did not disappoint. It is yet another masterpiece of a book. I was so impressed with the research he did for this book and the way he put together the story. The writing is fantastic. The exploration of marriage and family is wonderfully done. It's a big book and I do think some editing could have cut the total page count but, overall, I thought it was well worth the hype it's getting. Highly recommend.

I was very excited to hear that Nathan Hill was coming out with another book. I loved The Nix.
It was a complex book with a lot of moving parts, that in the end all fit nicely together. I didn't know what to expect this time. While it wasn't as good as the first, it really isn't fair to compare the two. I think the best way to put is- it was great, but in a different way. One of the things I most enjoyed about this book was the ever so slow way he developed the characters. They start as simple people looking to escape their troubled family life just as people do, only to turn into pretentious aspirational people of the new millennium, in many ways end up very much like that which they thought they were escaping. The book is also a hilarious, but scathing, rebuke of the "wellness" quest so common in recent years, which launch products that are sure to change your life, when in fact, they do nothing. We've all seen the ads maybe have fallen for some of them. It is also a cautionary tale about allowing ourselves to get sucked in social media because we are being allegedly controlled by algorithms who know everything about us. Also, atmospherically, the Chicago art scene 90s was vividly represented and as a reader you felt like you were there, or that you remember it well, which is one of Hill's true gifts as a writer. When I encounter a long book, I sometimes feel inclined to skim over less important parts to save time. This is not a book you want to do that with. Settle in, sit back, and enjoy the ride at your own pace. That would be a gift you give to yourself. Thanks Net Galley for this ARC opportunity!

This is an introspective look at a marriage and how a relationship morphs and changes over time. Recommended on audio.

I wasn’t a huge fan of this book. It was kind of heavy and didn’t have a lot of surprising moments that I like in a book.

I loved Wellness by Nathan Hill - and while it’s a long read it went by very quickly for me.

The TL;DR: boy meets girl and we see how wellness, in all ways, affects and transforms their relationship to each other, the world, and themselves.

Very well written and engaging. Don’t miss this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC. Wellness is out now!

I was a fan of The Nix and knew I wanted to read Nathan Hill's latest novel, Wellness. I really really liked it! But I will say, I don't think it will be for everyone. I related to the characters being that I am in a similar stage of life, but if you don't connect with the characters or if long-winded rants/tangents get to you, you may pass on this one.

Wellness is the definition of a character driven novel. The plot is really going nowhere fast and is more about the concept of everyday life as a middle-aged married person with a young child. It takes a great writer to make the mundaneness of life interesting and Hill has a way of writing that makes you empathetic to his characters and creates space for self-reflection. If you’ve read The Nix, you know that Hill loves a tangent. If you aren’t ok with veering off course and going down rabbit holes, this book might frustrate you, but it is one thing I love about his writing.

When I say that I felt like Hill has stalked me for the past ten years and documented my life, I truly mean it, down to how Elizabeth tells her Minecraft and YouTube obsessed possibly neurodivergent child to ‘like and subscribe’ when he goes to bed. It was like they were talking about my kids! I could not get over how much he nailed the repetitiveness that comes when you are married to your partner for years and are parenting a young child. I have been married for ten years now and we have three beautiful children, but life is monotonous most days and I can completely relate to the unrest that Jack and Elizabeth are facing. It’s hard to not look back at your younger years and fall into a nostalgic depression, but how do you fully embrace the beauty that is your current life? I loved the messages that this story shared. It isn’t one that wraps up all pretty with a bow, because life doesn’t work that way, but the ending is exactly what it should be.

I didn't love all of this (the algorithm bit went on a touch long), but I loved a lot of it. A brilliant, provocative, funny, emotional examination of contemporary life in America, marriage, parenting, love, loss, art, the list goes on. The chapter on better parenting through scientific research is, to me, practically perfect. If we have to wait another 11 years for another novel from Nathan Hill, save me a spot in line.

Jack and Elizabeth meet in an adorable way while attending college in the ‘90s. They get married, they have a kid, they become…well, like most of us. They have jobs, dirty dishes, play dates, anxiety, and bills. Soon, they’re overwhelmed, overbooked, overstimulated. And, just like most of us, they attempt to cope through the use of delusional beliefs, placebos, the internet, “a change of pace,” and when all else fails, good old isolation. Nathan Hill, in the way only Nathan Hill can, tackles all of this while also teaching us how to burn Kansas prairie fields, the chemical reactions possible with photographic paper, and why we really should not be on Facebook. Among many other things. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll relate, you’ll definitely ask yourself “what in the hell…” at least once every couple chapters (and in a 600 page book, that’s saying a lot).

I liked the book. I didn’t like it quite as well as I liked The Nix, but there are few books that could measure up to The Nix. For a sophomore effort, it’s excellent. Well worth the time invested. Highly recommend.

Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC in return for my honest review.