Who would have thought it’d be a 600-page clunker that would pull me out of my reading slump? And maybe there’s something there - the ability to really sink into a story, to really become immersed in it all, and to really connect to the characters that pulls you back to the enjoyment of books and reading. I’m gonna keep this potential tip in the back of mind for the next time I’m struggling. It just feels so counterintuitive to me to pick up a BIG book - a real commitment - when it feels like nothing is working, but 🤔🤷🏼‍♀️

While there was a lot of extra information that Hill explored - which was super fun, interesting, and fascinating - it did kind of bog the story down a bit. On the other hand, it’s been a long time since I’ve known characters as deep and close as I got to know Jack and Elizabeth. I rooted for them hard - and wanted to see them come out on top. I was completely invested in their love story.

I also really, really l o v e d the last chapter - like it was pretty darn near perfection for me and sealed a5-star rating for me. In addition, Jack and Elizabeth are a couple I won’t soon forget. I think when I get to December and reflect on my reading for the year, Wellness will still be one of the stories that totally stands out from the rest!

Was drawn in to this book from first pages as the characters fall in love and follow them their relationship their lives.The writing is so beautiful the characters come alive so much to this story their world.I except this to be nominated for many awards.# netgalley #wellness

SO SO GOOD. After I finished Nathan Hill’s new novel,, I actually had to purchase his first novel, the Nix. Love that too. Oh my, Mr Hill is brilliant at capturing time and place and mood, exploring relationships with depth and understanding and just enough mystery to keep things moving. I truly loved this book. I cannot wait to see what Mr Hill does next. He’s now on my list of favorites!

Wellness by Nathan Hill is a richly imagined, well-written story. One of the best I have ever read.
This book was perfection. The writing - smart and thoughtful - pulls you in and keeps you needing more. The characters are so human and deeply flawed you cant help but see a bit of yourself in these characters.
The humor here is top notch and kept me hooked. Along with Hill’s storytelling.
The underlying story is certainly interesting and engaging. This is how literature should be written!
This is just a very well written and highly entertaining work. Beautifully written and very compelling!
Wellness was definitely a five-star rating!

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank You NetGalley and Knopf for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

When I first read Nathan Hill's ovel The Nix it became one of those books that I would tell people they need to read. IIf I was in a bookstore with a friend asking me what they shpuld read next I would always bring them to The Nix. So when I heard he had a new book out called Wellness I was like will it be as good or will be a sophmore slump. It's hard to beat a novel like The Nix. The good news is it's an amazing book about life, relationships, art, family, the intenet and all the other things that are literally the pulse of the world we are living in today. There were passages and pages I would reread because there was so much in them. The internet section was something I'm sure every American is going through. The novel centers around Jack and Elizabeth and their child Toby. It goes back and forth in time showing their lives growing up and the things that affected them in childhood bleeds back into their lives today. It is so masterfully told that I really can't find anything negative to say about it. It's over 600 pages of life lessons. It will definetly be my favorite book of 2o23. I also would put it out there that I really couldnt be friends with someone who didn't like this book! Thank you to #knopf and #netgalley for the ARC. I will be promoting this book like crazy.

Book Review: Wellness, Nathan Hill
Source: Netgalley
Publisher: Knopf
Pub Date: 19 Sept 2023

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

I predict that literature professors teaching about the 21st century will be adding Wellness to their syllabi. With great heart and keen insight, Nathan Hill taps into the good, the bad and the ugly of modern life.

Jack and Elizabeth Bennett (no not THAT Lizzy Bennett) meet in college and it is love at first sight. Although from very different backgrounds, they just seem to get each other immediately. Both have escaped home and their dysfunctional families. Can they possibly find sanctuary in each other? The story settles in as we witness the ways in which life, work, children, information overload, health fads, the economy, and above all, expectations chip away at the initial luster that made their love shine. But who or what is to blame for this midlife marital crisis and what can possibly save their marriage? The reader will in turns cheer, sigh and groan as Jack and Elizabeth stumble through their lives in hopes of finding each other again.

It is impossible to share the myriad ways Hill reflects on the constant pressures and flood of information that often only leaves one feeling deficient, lonely, exhausted, insecure and hungry for answers. Ultimately, Wellness is a story of a marriage, the burdens of modern life, the stories that define us and the stories we tell ourselves to survive this messy life.

If you are looking for a thick book to sink your teeth into and take your time to savor, Wellness is for you.

Many thanks to the author Nathan Hill, @AAKnopf and @NetGalley for the pleasure of reading this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fully engrossing read. I found it quite hard to put the book down and admittedly I binged it. Overall there is a very depressing tone, but that’s how life is sometimes. And at its core this book is just about two lives intertwining and the history that made those two lives as well as the future of the lives themselves.

It’s completely captivating.

2.5 stars rounding up to 3. There were parts of this book that I really liked - Elizabeth and Jack's marriage was portrayed very realistically and I enjoyed all the sections about their relationship. But there was a lot of rambling in the book as well. I really didn't need a whole section on Facebook algorithms or the history of Elizabeth's family. I would have preferred a condensed book solely about Elizabeth and Jack's marriage - at 600+ pages it was just too much. Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC.

Clocking in at over 600 pages, Wellness is an investment that you should make. I adored this book. Maybe it’s because I am a 40-something married woman living in suburbia with kids. Maybe it’s because I went to college outside of Chicago in the mid-1990s. Maybe it’s because my parents do not know how to use Facebook properly and it drives me nuts. Maybe because I know that feeling of meeting your person and the world just revolves around the discovery you made: each other. Maybe because I am just about to enter my 14th year of that marriage. Maybe it’s because Nathan Hill is a master writer and I was hooked from the first chapter.

Wellness is a true masterpiece. Jack and Elizabeth meet in the 1990s in the artsy world of Chicago. The book goes back in forth between their meeting/early relationship and their current situation: more than a decade into marriage when they are reckoning with their relationships, career ambitions, parenting and just life. I loved both Jack and Elizabeth even though they were not perfect.

This would have been a 5-star book for me save for the ending. I felt like I was missing something and I read it twice! Somebody chat with me about it. On the plus side, I am still thinking about it a week later!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Thank you @knopf and @netgalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review

This book was oddly written. I had a terrible time trying to follow what was going on in the story. I spent so much time feeling confused that I had to stop reading it.

Thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for the ARC of this title.

I adored Hill's previous novel, [book:The Nix|28251002], and I've been keeping an eye out the last few years, wondering when we were getting whatever came after that. It's been well worth the wait.

THE NIX was sprawling and human and messy, taking a few idiosyncratic turns, and this does a lot of the same thing, using its camera to zoom in and out of its main characters' lives, telling a story at a certain moment but also making sure we get its full context from their past. Hill seems really good at spelling out a character's neuroses and then writing about them in a way that plays on that in a way where it embeds into the text itself.

With both of these books, there's a delightful sense that in the research for these characters' lives, Hill found so much enjoyable in the side research that he needed to share with all of us. This is a book that somehow folds together postmodern art, hypertext, placebos, social media algorithms, and so many other side tangents (and has the bibliography to prove it at the end). As a person who also drops so. many. conversational footnotes, I love this, and the 600-ish pages of this fly by even with all of these enjoyable detours.

Also, it's really funny? Actually proper full-guffaw-in-my-empty-apartment funny, not just polite-chuckle-to-yourself-on-the-train funny.

The first chapter of this does such a good job of setting up its main couple, making you root for them, but also showing them as deeply real, human, flawed people. Everything that follows is a hilarious, illuminating journey. Whatever comes next from Hill, I'm convinced it'll be just as worth the wait.

Like a Master Surgeon, Nathan Hill brilliantly dissects relationships, marriage, and life at the speed of light morphing 21st Century in his hypnotically readable #Wellness. Moving from hysterical to heartbreaking and everything in between. #Wellness belongs in a 100 year Time Capsule, but you should read this brilliant book NOW !

If I had to describe Wellness by Nathan Hill using just one word, it would be RANDOM. There’s a lot going on in this novel. It’s centered around husband and wife, Jack and Elizabeth, and the progression of their relationship from young lovers to an overwhelmed married couple. This part I absolutely loved. In between the relationship stuff, the story touched on a plethora of topics like algorithms, online misinformation, conspiracy theories, health and diet fads, the placebo effect, non-monogamous relationships, and so much more that I kinda blacked out on. In my opinion, this novel was WAY too long. It felt super chatty, wordy, and like I was reading one big run-on sentence. At least 150-200 pages could’ve been easily shaved off. Honestly, if I had read the physical copy instead of listened to the audio, I probably would’ve DNF’ed it at the halfway point. Overall, I enjoyed Wellness for the most part, but must dock some points for the length alone. It’s a 600+ page book that didn’t really have to be. Most of the randomness I found quite fascinating, but also a little annoying and unnecessary. 🤷🏻‍♀️

READ THIS IF YOU ENJOY:

- 1990s pop culture
- Chicago setting
- Social media
- Literary fiction
- Character-driver novels
- Family drama & dysfunction
- Marriage & relationships
- Health & wellness industry
- Poking fun at said industry

Wellness releases on September 19th, and I give it 3.5/5 stars!

A very long book, Wellness was a difficult start for me, and difficult to rate because I almost gave up at times.

In Wellness, Nathan Hill tells the story of a couple from the early 90s to the present. The story starts before they meet and their relationship evolves, The man and woman are both very complicated, complex personalities.

The writing is very descriptive, long-winded which caused me to soak it in at some points, and skim through many others.
The story is interesting and surprisingly deeply informative in some places.

Buckle up.

Thank you, Netgalley, Knopf, and Mr. Hill for the ARC.

I really loved the writing and thw concept of this book. It kept me intrigued. It was also very thought provoking!

I am very sad that I did not like this the way I hoped I would. This 100% is because it was a book not right for this reader. It was an immense undertaking of the author to write a book as detailed and far reaching in subject matter as this, but it was just too out there for me and I also struggle with satire. It is a 5 star read based on how the author went about putting this book together and I immensely respect the writing, but I really did not enjoy reading it at all. I hate saying that! But, I didn't.

I read THE NIX when it came out and while I struggled a bit with that, by the end I couldn't turn the pages fast enough and I felt it was a really great novel. THE NIX was also part historical fiction and I felt I learned something in that context, where as with WELLNESS, it was too much in the weeds for me. There were certainly interesting aspects to it, but all together being 600+ pages...it was just too much for too long. I did want to finish it so I could be as accurate as possible in my review, but there were a few times I considered DNF.

I might have more thoughts to come, but this is where I will leave it for now.

Thank you to AA Knopf for the gifted finished copy/arc and to Libro.fm for the gifted ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Publication Date: 09/19/2023

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, Knopf and NetGalley for an electronic ARC of this novel.

Wellness, by Nathan Hill, follows the story of Jack and Elizabeth, who come from vastly different background but meet (by fate?) at college students in Chicago. They connect so well, they consider themselves soulmates. But years go by and their fatedness comes into question. Jack, once a starving but promising artist, is teaching art as an adjunct professor, while Elizabeth runs Wellness, which takes the placebo effect to great heights.

Nathan Hill is a good writer, but this novel is very, very long. My interest in what happened kind of waned at times depending on what was going on in the plot or whether it was one of many asides. It's not for everyone but it was entertaining on the whole.

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.

I have always wanted to read The Nix therefore I jumped at the chance to read Wellness in advance of publication. So glad I did, This is a gloriously messy saga of love,life and reality. Jack and Elizabeth meet in college and believe they are fated soulmates. Yet they both come with histories and baggage that neither claims or addresses. “When you cling too much to what you want, you miss what’s really there”.
Beautifully written and a testament to our times. Well done and thank you Knopf publishing, netgalley and Nathan Hill

This is an interesting novel, but it's so bloated and overly-detailed to death. Nathan Hill can definitely write but he desperately needs an editor that can tell him to trim the fat. It takes Hill 45 pages just to describe one day or one scene. The reading experience becomes very tedious and distracting. The plot is excellent, but there's too many scenes that don't add up to much. It's a mixed bag for me.