This could be the Great American Novel. Would that it were possible to award more than Five Stars to "Wellness."

Is there an algorithm for how to describe this book? Besides keeping me riveted for almost 500 pages I came away with so much information that my brain aches. But that is far from all. It's an absolutely beautiful love story which also includes everything you need to know about being alive in the first quarter of the 21st century.

You want psychology? Do you wonder about the Placebo Effect? How about Facebook and other social media? Polyamory? Yup. And so much more. Rather than recount the tale of Jack and Elizabeth, both tortured souls due to their parents' behavior, let me sing the praises of Nathan Hill, who with scholarship blended with humor, will cause you to collar people around you to read aloud passages of pure and absolute genius. I learned more about art and photography here than I did in countless museum visits and Art courses. Same about the

Do not let all this frighten you away from reading one of the most heartfelt and emotionally memorable novels of the century. Thanks and blessings to Knopf and NetGalley..

I was a big fan of The Nix so this second novel of Nathan Hill’s comes with sky high expectations - and boy did it deliver. The book follows Jack and Elizabeth, their meeting each other, 20 years past that when attempting to build their “forever home” and flashbacks into their troubled pasts. Beautifully written tackling topics of romance, art, social media, placebo science, and marriage with poignancy and wit that made me chuckle to myself at times and I counted no less than a dozen times where I looked up from the book and thought wow, that was well done.

As much as I enjoyed The Nix, the premise of this book appeals to me more. As a fellow mid 30s middle class citizen, similar to the protagonists, the various characters involved in the book feel like people I’ve encountered all the time. The boomer father spending his retirement on facebook, the suburbanite moms, the real estate developer bro- all these side characters that are written with such sharpness and wit without reducing them to cliches. The character development sticks out as one of the strong points as the characters are so well written.

This is the best book of 2023. It cements Nathan Hill as one of the best active writers. I urge you all to preorder the book and get your hands on a copy asap. It’s a wonderful book that will stick with me for a good while.

Thank you to the author, netgalley, and Knopf for the advance digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Nix was one of my favorite books of all time but it had been so long since its publication that I was starting to wonder if it was a one-hit wonder, the author like one of those literary sensations that burn briefly and then fizzle out like you always see in movies and books about once-brilliant writers. So when I saw the author had a new book out, I immediately requested it. I had to wait till I was in the right mood for a complicated literary chonker of a book.

And his sophomore effort does not disappoint. This book is just as brilliant in a very different way. It’s a master class in character development; no one is as good at character as Nathan Hill. This effort was well worth the wait.

It’s the story of the marriage of Jack and Elizabeth, the symmetry of the secrets about the darkest sides of yourself that you spare your partner to maintain the illusion of love, of a life together, and each of their callings in life. Jack takes photographs of nothing, without a camera, splotches on wasted photographic paper produced in a darkroom, which he claims are meta abstractions but are really depicting his darkest secret.

Elizabeth, meanwhile, the skeptic and scientist paired with the moody artist and hopeless romantic, runs a company called Wellness, that studies placebo effects and later markets them as treatments, and yet miraculously avoids a criminal investigation of fraud. She’s the prodigal daughter of abusive old money parents, whose families earned their wealth the old fashioned way, by hitching their fortunes to theft, deceit, the Klu Klux Klan and Nazis.

As their marriage unravels, Elizabeth and Jack confront deeper truths about themselves, their upbringings, their core beliefs, all couched in salient truths about algorithms, culture wars, fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, gentrification, a tongue in cheek critique of wokeism but also its opposing force, gender roles, the nature of belief and the stories we tell ourselves to shore up that belief.

In the hands of a lesser author this would have been too much ground to cover in one novel, but in the hands of Nathan Hill, every sentence was perfect, salient and true.

This was a brilliant book and well worth the wait. Beautiful sentences, beautiful, complex, flawed characters, gorgeous storytelling. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I understand why some people don't like or appreciate this. It's long, wordy, maybe a little pretentious, and it can be hard to read. I loved it for those reasons. I think this is brilliant. The author has an astute eye for the human condition, and I think his presentation of this relationship was stunning.

You have a new fan.

I received a complimentary copy of the book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Two young college students, Jack and Elizabeth, watch each other through windows of their rooms in adjacent buildings overlooking an alley. They fall in love with each other, a romance fated by the buildings they inhabit, call the architecture Chicago brick, renovated warehouses and brownstones. Their romance follows the steps of courtship, marriage, a child, and other living spaces. The living spaces, the rooms in which they live, the dream condo in the stages of renovation and change, an ongoing project, much like their marriage, Facebook as a living space, the yuppie family neighborhood, have as much character as the characters. Years later, as the romance wears off, the stresses of married life have Elizabeth and Jack looking for ways to bring the magic back before the marriage falls apart. Everyone has answers. Amazing as it may seem all answers are right as Jack and Elizabeth push toward separate truths from their respective pasts, their deepest hurts secrets they never share with each other. Nothing was really true in childhood when parents told their children false versions of the truth, some stories passed on through generations. Readers of John Irving’s Until I Find You, will appreciate what Hill has done with the past shared between parents and children.

In this story scenes from a marriage alternate with scenes from the distant and near pasts. The love story is straightforward, the distant past unfolds on the pages like confessions once told a psychoanalyst. Lacking a therapist, personal family histories with their tragedies and ruthlessness remain unspoken but not forgotten, as the couple work with placebos, abstract photography, pop gurus, super-moms, smart phones with apps that plan and regulate their lives, a realtor with a building with condos designed to perfectly meet the separate needs of husband and wife, including the unforetold probability of divorce so the two can continue sharing the same living space.

To be expected, with the foibles of our capitalistic culture at any given moment, there’s much bloviating and commiseration by the author of the mental state of his characters. Some of the writing seems like filler, but entertaining, often informative, and some of the writing makes for good stand-up comedy. Hill even provides a partial bibliography of scientific and parenting documents of his research. Not to forget the prompts by the author, a constant reminding that there are many stories, as he deftly suggests story lines of families provided for the reader to reach conclusions like how a slender historical line from enslavement to exploitation is manifested in white privilege.

Hill hopes, as do I, the reader will read through all this to his staggering emotional ending. This is literature after Infinite Jest, not to say there aren’t traces Joyce’s Ulysses and Nabokov’s Lolita, and the rest of the old literature deeply rooted or embedded like the pasts of Jack and Elizabeth in this story, but this story is vintage romance in a modern day setting and that doesn’t grow old.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an advanced copy.

Thank you Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for the privilege of reading this book. Wellness takes a deep dive into marriage, the highs and lows of relationships and what it takes to dig deep and stay together or let it all go. Jack and Elizabeth find each other in college, she's science driven and he's an artist. I found Elizabeth's way of looking at relationships with the placebo effect fascinating but I'm glad she realizes that's not life and your relationships with friends, your children and your spouse are too complicated when feelings, thoughts and emotions are involved. I was glad for the deeper dive into Jack & Elizabeth's upbringing because it did shed light into their path to each other and what could ultimately drive them apart. I liked the author, Nathan Hill's, wit and depth and will definitely look for his other books.

I never read The Nix but so many people raved about it that when I saw Nathan Hill had a second novel, about marriage and disillusionment and a couple that meets in Chicago, I was intrigued enough to give it a try. Unfortunately his writing style is just not for me. There is nothing wrong here, the author's voice is just not a good fit for my reader preferences and I was not able to connect to the characters or finish the book.

Wellness by Nathan Hill explores the ups and downs of married life with kids while also managing to provide a thoughtful, often times hilarious, criticism of the age of technology we are living in. As a reader, I truly fell in love with both Jack and Elizabeth. Jack and Elizabeth are both quirky, eccentric characters with mother wounds that run deep.

Jack's mother blames him for his sister's death (he was only nine when she died) and said some pretty awful things to him that result in a core belief he holds that he is broken and unwanted. It's not until he meets Elizabeth, an aspiring artist who lives life ten toes down, that he feels alive and seen. The two fall in love, get married, and have a son named Toby who is another character I know will live in my head rent free. Hill does a powerful job of showing how our children view us. There are certain aspects revealed in the narrative that the reader can only comprehend through Toby's eyes.

I love that while Jack and Elizabeth are central to the story the author also manages to show important aspects of their upbringing, family life, mistakes and hopes they hold onto as a way to drive home the character's internal battles and triumphs. This story is human, funny, and full of life!

Thank you to the author and publisher for the e-arc copy!

Jack and Elizabeth meet in a romantic fever dream of artistic expression and individuality in Chicago during the 1990s, each of them bursting with the desire to differentiate themselves from their oppressive families and claim a place in the underground art scene. Twenty years and a child later, they struggle to recognize each other, and the forgotten dreams of their youth taunt them. The book examines what wellness means to them throughout the various stages of their lives and relationship. As both a couple and individually, Jack and Elizabeth are forced to realize that they cannot expect their partner to complete them without individually reconciling their prior aspirations against their unfulfilling careers, the struggles of parenthood, and painful memories of their adolescence.

Thank you as always to @netgalley, Nathan Hill, and @aaknopf / @penguinrandomhouse for the ARC. I loved The Nix and was so excited to see another book by Hill, and was even more excited when my request for an advanced copy was approved. I absolutely loved this. The last chapter was probably one of the most perfect things I have ever read. I legit highlighted the whole thing. This book did an excellent job of examining relationships under the influence rapidly changing technology and the social media-era need of demonstrating perfection. There were a lot of great discussions regarding philosophy, photography and art, the placebo effect, ethics in medicine, algorithms, sexual insecurity, and the curse of wealth, among many other themes. I really enjoyed the competing narratives of Jack and Elizabeth. Ambitious but extremely well-executed, Wellness is a sprawling novel with deep themes and an incredible examination of life in the twenty first century. I highly recommend adding this to your TBR! Wellness hits shelves everywhere on September 19.

A quote I loved: “Beyond all the poetry, beyond all the songs, love is this, my dear: it’s an expansion of the self. It’s when the boundaries of the self spread out to include someone else, and what used to be them now becomes you.”

Abe one more! “Behind curtains, this, he thinks, is what lovers do—they are alchemists and architects; pioneers and fabulists; they make one thing another; they invent the world around them.”

“Wellness,” the sophomore work from “The Nix” author Nathan Hill, has a lot of the charm that made his debut so beloved. With snappy wit and a keen eye for absurdity, Hill targets parenthood, social media, capitalism, science, art, and groups of all political affiliations. Since one of his key themes is storytelling, the plot cycles through vignettes in Jake’s and Elizabeth’s lives. Sometimes, these stories cover similar ground. I think this is part of Hill’s project, looking at ways stories change over time, but readers should not expect an action-packed book. It’s more of an ideas-driven, rather than a plot-driven, novel. For me, the humor kept me engaged throughout. “Wellness” is your intellectual medicine surrounded in a tasty candy coating of comedy.

This is a huge novel that starts with a couple meeting and throughout the story you find out where they come from, why they are the way they are, and what they have gone through. There were many discussions brought up including marriage, parenthood, childhood, placebo, the internet and algorithms, and much more.

I learned a lot about many different topics in this book and/or was offered another perspective. Some of the things went way over my head, but it didn’t deter me from reading. It just made me more interested. I learned more about art and photography in this book than I have anywhere else! All the topics felt very current and relevant.

This book would be a great book club pick and I would love to listen to a podcast or watch a video of others discussing. I would recommend to people who enjoy love stories that aren’t romance and learning in fiction.

I wanted to like this. I found the premise very interesting, but the long paragraph after long paragraph was tiring and boring to read. DNF at 11%.

Some books are hard to read because they are poorly written, have shallow characterization, or use pretentious language. This book is none of those. It is hard to read because you palpably feel the characters' pain. Wellness follows the life of its two main characters, Gen X bohemians who met in art school in Chicago in the nineties and instantly fell in soulmate love. Thirty years later, they are trapped in a boring marriage and dealing with the fallout of their dysfunctional families of origin. Hill writes searing prose that is by turns hilarious and soul-assaulting. He deftly satirizes contemporary wellness culture (the wife of the couple runs a nonprofit that gives people placebos to solve their problems). He analyzes the divisiveness of social media by explaining algorithms succinctly and clearly (I finally get why they're so dangerous!). And he exposes the folly of capitalism, white flight, suburban cultural oppression, and sexual experimentation as a replacement for meaningful connection. I almost put down this book several times because it hurt my soul. I'm still glad I finished it.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for the digital ARC of 'Wellness' by Nathan Hill.

I loved 'The Nix' and raved about it to anyone who would listen when I read it so was excited to hear that Nathan Hill had a new novel coming out.

Although not as outstanding as 'The Nix' I very much enjoyed 'Wellness.' The Nix was multi-generational and multi decade and while this is also in the same ballpark, it's much more contained in terms of the time-frame and the generations involved.

I would say it's an on-the-nose, sometimes very funny critique of the past twenty years or so of modern American (and global life). It takes aim at social media, the wellness-healthcare industrial complex, technology, gentrification (and the realization that the people being gentrified on top of, themselves displaced someone else), capitalism, politics and local activism (left- and right-wing), art, culture. They're all in Nathan Hill's crosshairs. There's a really strong undercurrent of self-loathing (the two main characters are escaping screwed-up childhoods and abusive/non-caring parents) and the role all of the above plays in overcoming or dealing with or papering over the effects of that childhood and self-loathing.

As I said, not as outstanding as The Nix but wonderfully written with characters you want to engage with.

WELLNESS (2023)
By Nathan Hill
Alfred A. Knopf, 634 pages.
★★★

Wellness is the second novel from Nathan Hill, whose The Nix justly won much praise. Wellness isn’t quite up that level, but give Hill credit for a second effort whose focus is quite different. Its dual protagonists are Jack Baker and Elizabeth Augustine whose 20 -year plus relationship begins in the 1990s.

If you suspect that Wellness is likely to be an ironic title, you’re on the right street, though you may not have the correct address. Each has fled to Chicago to reinvent themselves. They live in facing apartments in a delipidated complex in Wicker Park. Due to unfortunate urban renewal and highway construction, their section of Chicago was gritty, if not as entirely devoid of life as they later recall. Jack and Elizabeth were mutual (and mostly innocent) voyeurs clandestinely observing each other before they actually met. Jack fled Nebraska, his sister’s death, a perpetually pessimistic mother, and a passive farmer/planned prairie fire starter father; Elizabeth three generations of often ill-begotten wealth and The Gables, an outwardly impressive mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. Thought slight in build, Jack now sports an enormous tattoo, studies photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, hangs out at seedy venues to see “hot” now-forgotten bands, and makes an unexpected splash in the art scene du jour. Elizabeth studies psychology and mentors with Dr. Otto Sanborn, a guru of placebo studies. They fall in love based on the ideal that the other is the rebel they only pretend to be. Ha!

Jack and Elizabeth marry, have a difficult-to-raise son, and move away from Wicker Park until Jack’s friend Benjamin Quince can finish the New Urbanism Shipworks, which will contain their “forever home” condo. They also struggle with the slaps of adult life and the reality they aren’t the people they thought they’d be. Jack constantly seeks stability and Elizabeth has an even odder path. She opens a research lab called Wellness that does blind trials on placebos but, on a personal level, she’s really looking for a panacea for whatever upsets her. Her greatest success, though, is in monetizing placebos. To give one example, she helps an airline develop an ad campaign to make people feel good about crowded flights and sell premium seats that used to be called coach.

Wellness takes us into some weird situations. Jack touts photography without a camera; Elizabeth wonders if a woman named Brandie is onto something with her polyamorous lifestyle. Benjamin rockets from one trend to another–hypertext, gag-me diet fads, real estate development–and Jack nods knowingly though he doesn’t have the bandwidth to question whether Ben is a genius or just a moth looking for a flame. You can mix in Minecraft addiction, sexual discontent, guilt, the sophistry of positive psychology, rightwing conspiracy theories, bats in the proverbial belfry, and a whole lot more. At the heart of it all is a burning fear: If Jack and Elizabeth aren’t who they thought they were, are they terribly, terribly wrong for each other?

Hill gives us deep background into their backgrounds, mostly in flashback chapters. These serve to help us understand Jack and Elizabeth and raise questions of whether self-deception is hardwired into their DNA. In many respects, everyone in the book is selling snake-oil. The chapter titled “The Placebo Marriage” is particularly devastating and revelatory.

Wellness is rich in ideas, but sometimes overly so. It’s a long novel that could have been usefully trimmed. There are passages that read more as asides than as necessary to advance the plot. I understand how sections on Facebook seduction parallels those of Minecraft and other trends. I even agree with such thinking, but such passages and others involving the important question of whether algorithms are the new master need more direct connection to character development for full impact. There is another thread–whether we actually live inside a computer simulation–that is suddenly and cavalierly dismissed, so why go there at all?

Nonetheless, Hill redeems himself when he’s directly rather than obliquely on target. At heart, Wellness asks the right questions; among them: What is real? What is wellness? Why don’t we detect BS when we’re stepping in it? Can you really leave home? My favorite centers on how to tell the difference between a true rebel and massive faded tattoos, real ones and those metaphorically etched onto our skin.

Rob Weir

I had high hopes for this book when I started, it pull me right in. Unfortunately, it became tedious, long, and not worth the effort to finish.

This book is a wholeeee TOME. 600+ pages, but none of it dragged!

Most people who have read this so far have deemed Hill's first novel 'The Nix' as an all-time favorite book. I have actually not read this book yet, and I have new interest to add it to my list.

This book covers falling in love, marriage, monogamy v non-monogamy, Facebook, 'The Man,' etc.

I believe some people will find this book highly relatable, while others may find it preachy. I found it somewhere in between

Through the eyes of Jack and Elizabeth, we get a real good look at the idea of 'Wellness'. For Jack and Elizabeth, this term is defined differently through the stages of their life. Does that it mean being the aspiring artist/entrepreneur, the perfect mom/dad, the perfect husband/wife? With the added physical and emotional factors of life added into the mix, the term well-being becomes completely subjective.

Nathan Hill is an extremely talented writer but I don’t think his writing style fits with my reading style. Wellness seems to want to be a Great American Novel, and perhaps it is, but the long passages of exposition made the pace just too slow to keep my interest. I was enchanted at first by the love story of Jack and Elizabeth, and then I realized that this was going to be a novel where time jumps around, which is fine, but Hill’s ambition to address so many themes and situations makes the exposition necessary (otherwise the novel would be even longer), and that is the main problem for me.

I read Hill’s previous work-THE NIX-and thought it fabulous. He seemingly disappeared and then 7(?) years later-WELLNESS!!!!! I’m now convinced he spent a good portion of those years writing/ researching WELLNESS. On one level it is the relationship between the two main characters-Jack and Elizabeth. He a photographer, she multi-talented but settles on psychology and psychological testing. Both are “ damaged” as a result of terrible childhoods, and their absolutely terrible upbringing is explored in detail. BUT-it is so much more. Life in rural Kansas, the wellness industry and the effect of placebos, photography, the computer/ search firms-in this case FACEBOOK-and the algorithms they utilize to influence us, a look at polyamorous love relationships and what drives them, how major construction works are perilously funded, how “ cults” can so easily ostracize people and ruin lives-in short-well worth the 600 page tome it is!!! Beautifully written, captivating snd informing-a “ must read” of 2023!!!!!!!