I definitely liked this story, about a marriage in a state of flux, better than the author’s first novel, The Nix. Even though, like the first one, it was quite long, it was interesting from the get-go, whereas his first novel seemed to take a while to get going.
One thing about this author - he loves going off on tangents, which is why his books take so long to get through.. Sometimes, they’d be so seemingly off course, that I had to check to make sure it wasn’t a collection of short stories at first. It’s not. Eventually, the sidebars would make sense as to how they fit into the narrative, but man, it would take a while.
A little more fine tuning might have served this book, but overall, it was still enjoyable.
Thanks to #netgalley and #knopfpublishing for this #arc of #wellness in exchange for an honest review.

Whew, this was a doozy (>600 pages!) At its core, this is a story about modern married life, alongside the challenges of parenting and the external pressures of social media and information overload. Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in Chicago in the 90s, and we flash forward 20 years down the road to their current marriage, as they encounter culty mindfulness groups, placebo studies, Facebook wars, and polyamory. I liked the flashbacks to their childhoods and the examination of how their familial relationships formed the context for their current relationship and parenting styles. They weren’t the most likable characters but I still found myself rooting for them as a couple.

Thanks very much to NetGalley and Knopf for the eARC of Wellness! I’ve had The Nix on my TBR shelf for a long time, and I’ll definitely be reading it very soon after finishing Nathan Hill’s new novel, Wellness. I loved the characters of Jack and Elizabeth from the first page—they felt real to me, and the strength of their relationship from the beginning (after a section detailing their sweet, truly introverted courtship, staring into each other’s Chicago apartments from across an alleyway). I cared about them and was rooting for them the entire book. I also loved the depiction of Chicago and the novel’s specific sense of place (even in the fictionalized locations). The prose is superb, as is the author’s use of alternating points of view. As with much literary fiction, the plot per se is difficult to easily summarize, but I’m glad I went on this journey with Elizabeth and Jack and look forward to reading The Nix very soon. Thank you!

WELLNESS by Nathan Hill is a book that will stay in my mind and heart forever. Written beautifully in liquid prose feeling inevitable and pleasurable, the story of two fascinating Individuals who find one another across a narrow divide and ultimately intertwine their lives and fates is powerful, beguiling in the way of stories that urge me to read one more chapter before turning off the light. It felt so essential, so true and immediate that I felt like I knew the characters, in all their wonderful and terrible moments. WELLNESS is one of those rare reads that had me racing, jumping, and thinking back over my own life with its penetrating and compassionate view into how we see ourselves and live our lives. Jack and Elizabeth are incredibly compelling and convincing characters who meet with "Come with" and follow where it takes them -- and I was the happy onlooker. I received a copy of this book and these opinions are my own, unbiased thoughts.

This is a story about happiness and all the forces in modern times that conspire against achieving it -- most of all, one's self.  Jack and Elizabeth spend a long time observing each other before they actually meet when they are college students in Chicago in the early 1990s.  When they finally do meet, they find themselves powerfully drawn to each other -- and soon are inseparable.  They love the life they have created with each other and a community of like-minded friends, many of whom are artists or in the art scene.

Two decades later, Jack and Elizabeth find their happiness -- and connection -- tested in multiple ways: parenting an often difficult
child, the pressures of finding a home and financial security, the dismay of unfulfilled career ambitions, the dynamics of making new friends as adult, and the ongoing impacts of their own childhoods, that shape them in clear and subconscious ways.  Will they be able to find the spark, or even the spark of recognition, that led the unlikely pair together all those years ago?

This book was excellent -- one of the best I've read this year.  The book deftly explores many interesting and timely themes.  It is one of the most thoughtful examinations of how social media mediates and distorts relationships, through Jack's engagement with his father.  The novel portrays how Jack's father's views, and then behavior, are shaped in troubling ways by his increasing engagement with social media.  But the author also shows how even Jack, who views himself as a sophisticated consumer of social media, finds himself unexpectedly falling victim to its influence. 

The book is also quite insightful about several aspects of the human condition, particularly in the modern times, including how people's need to separate themselves from their unhappy childhood often leads them to somehow creating the same mistakes as adults; how building a community of friends as a young adult that feels like family often unravels when people start having children; and the ways that children internalize their parents' unhappiness.   A powerful story itself, the book also portrays how powerful the stories we all tell ourselves are -- and the placebo effect that comes with the certainty those stories provide.

Very highly recommended!

I was so excited to receive this arc! The Nix is still one of my favorite books and I was excited for the follow-up. Wellness is very different from the Nix. Wellness is the story of the relationship of Jack and Elizabeth. The novel jumps around slightly in timelines-from their individual origin stories to their meeting and courtship-to their marriage and ultimately discontent. In the background of the tale is their very 21st century search for self-improvement and looking to escape from their discontent with their lives-leading Elizabeth to create a love potion to help couples fall back in love with one another (it is less magical than it sounds-the potion is a placebo). Wellness is a snapshot of where we are as a society and a culture-always searching for the next big thing that will make us happy and distract us from reality.

Wellness is an easily accessible reading experience for a book about such heavy themes and ideas. The writing is beautiful and poetic and the characters are flawed and unlikeable but still relatable and sympathetic figures. An excellent follow-up to the Nix and well worth the 6 year wait!

Thanks to the publisher for providing the arc via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

I absolutely loved "Wellness" by Nathan Hill! Having been a fan of his previous work, “The Nix," I had high expectations, and this book did not disappoint.

Hill's writing once again showcased his incredible talent. It had me laughing out loud on numerous occasions, and the thought-provoking elements of the story kept me engaged from start to finish. His ability to craft complex characters and weave intricate narratives is truly remarkable.

If you're looking for a well-written, thought-provoking, and genuinely entertaining read, "Wellness" is a must-read. Nathan Hill continues to prove himself as a master storyteller, and I eagerly await his next literary masterpiece. Five stars without a doubt!

The novel begins in January 1993 with Jack and Elizabeth's early years of love in Chicago's Wicker Park, jumps around a bit to include their future together as parents and possibly new homeowners in 2014, and dives back into each of their family histories (both ghastly.) The story spans so many big topics and summarizing a 600+ page book is impossible but I would narrow the novel's main themes down to authenticity (in life and art) and psychological manipulation (from family, technology, and the wellness industry.)

I generally refrain from revealing sections that I especially loved for fear that they may spoil the experience for a future reader, but there is a small storyline that was woven in so well that I just have to comment on it. I think everyone will learn something or wish they could force someone they love to read it, and that is about Jack's father's relationship with Facebook. Jack belongs to a demographic of people who know that Facebook (and virtually any social media platform) runs on algorithms to draw users in and then continue to deliver content intended to drive engagement within the platform--because that's how they make money. Jack's father represents another demographic, an almost entire generation of social media users who view the world through a technological medium that they have never learned how to properly use or analyze. The details that author Nathan Hill used in these sections alone would have had me singing this book's praises, but that is just a single storyline. There are so many more perfectly captured themes and detailed characters in this book that my head is spinning in amazement.

To sum it up: this book currently sits in my #1 spot for Best Book of 2023.

it brings me NO pleasure to report this, especially as someone who used to google "nathan hill new book" repeatedly, but i didn’t enjoy WELLNESS.

billed as a modern american novel, we follow chicagoans jack & elizabeth as they navigate middle age, marriage, parenthood, and 21st century anxieties large and small. both are inescapably rooted in their past but wondering with trepidation where their lives are headed. what stories are they telling themselves, and how will these beliefs illuminate their path forward?

mark WELLNESS down as yet another Ideas Novel in which hill's preoccupation with certain social issues and desire to interrogate (psuedo)science concepts takes center stage, his characters contoured only to fit his specific conceptual framework. he never develops any interiority; his arms-length tone made me feel like i was observing jack and elizabeth from outside the glass, like lab rats, never able to emotionally connect. the side characters are paper thin, most egregiously jack's sister - someone crucially important to his growth but so flimsy as to be almost nonexistent. others are poorly sketched caricatures that represent various cultural subgroups (nimbys, new age instagram moms, fitness nuts, corporate sellouts, etc) but they're neither believable nor satirically effective.

hill also inserts myriad info dumps that read like nonfiction - rarely informative, primarily dull and clinical. there’s even a long bibliography. i took to skimming these, especially a ridiculous chapter on the facebook algorithm. he clearly has many research interests (the science of wellness, psychology, child development, art, the culture wars, social media, urbanism), and the skeleton of a great character novel (a fading marriage full of doubts and questions but also intimate shared history, the trials of parenthood in the internet age, reflections on (sub)urban life) but in combination, it became unpolished and scattershot.

at ~625 pages, i expected an immersive saga like THE NIX. instead, WELLNESS is thematically overstuffed and emotionally underbaked. i will read hill again, but this is sadly a gigantic miss after 7 years.

Jack and Elizabeth are two college kids, from dysfunctional upbringings, who connect with one another and fall in love. The book takes us through each of their experiences as children, young adults and adulthood. Both are striving to better themselves and trip up along the way as most of us do. This is an in depth, descriptive day in the life of this couple. We read about their struggles as adults and their marriage and being comfortable in their own skin. I enjoyed reading about Chicago in the 1980s & 90s, where I grew up and all the new advances in technology and pop culture.

This is Nathan Hill’s follow up release to The Nix, which is one of my favorite books! The narrator @arifliakos is phenomenal!

When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the '90s, their love feels unlike anything else in the world. Twenty years later, the two find themselves facing the mundane pressures of middle age -- a challenging child, careers that feel far removed from their youthful dreams, pressure to fit in with their neighbors, and, most of all, growing remove from each other. As these pressures mount, Jack and Elizabeth face what once felt impossible: a life without the other.

This was a well-written, deeply textured, and perceptive story, offering original and thought-provoking explorations of marriage, the long reach of childhood, and how social media impacts even the most unlikely relationships. This is a book you will be thinking about long after you finish it.

Highly recommended!

It's been seven years since Nathan Hill's debut novel, "The Nix", and it's now easy to imagine that it has taken all of that time to write this new 624-page book. Written with his typical sardonic wit, the author truly inhabits the lives of his characters as he dissects their marriage and their lives.

In 1993, Jack is a photographic art student who comes to Chicago from a farming family in Kansas. He meets and falls in love with Elizabeth, a science, psychology, economics, and theatre major from a rich family in New England. They come from very different backgrounds, but are both seeking freedom "from their pasts, their families, and their mislaid childhoods".

The narrative navigates through the chapters of Jack and Elizabeth's lives and the evolution of their marriage where, by 2014, they find themselves in a period of mid-life unhappiness. They try to figure out how they fit together economically, educationally, sexually, and socially. The story seems to revolve around an excessive amount of overthinking, while poking fun at home gyms, health trackers, diets, supplements, sexual experimentation, fitness gurus and the internet in general.

We also learn a lot about Elizabeth's ancestors and their wild money-making pyramid schemes with lumbar, textiles, and metals through the years. Then, it's Elizabeth's work, within Wellness research and with the use of placebos to treat multiple disorders and dupe customers with real problems, that takes center stage.

Unfortunately, at about halfway through this lengthy telling, it all became a little bit too much for me; too explanatory, too researched, too hypercritical. I began to ask myself if I should just throw in the towel. However, I persevered, but at 70% into the book, when the story went deeply into the analytics and algorithms used to run Facebook, my mind started to wander, and everything began to blur. I started to do what I never do when reading -- I skimmed.

I started reading this book with eager anticipation because I loved Nathan Hill's debut novel, The Nix, and I gave it five stars. In retrospect, I feel that I was probably not the right audience for this newest book and hopefully my review will just be an outlier.

My sincere thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

An absolute masterpiece. Wow, this is the perfect commentary on marriage, our current society, relationships, all of it. It’s nonfiction within fiction. Incredible. Long yes, but worth every page.

Thank you for the ARC!

I have as yet to read his first book, The Nix, but after reading Wellness, I definitely will. Great story, so true to life about how sometimes we take relationships for granted after so many years. Jack and Elizabeth’s story was told in such a way that I hated to put it down. So well written that I could not help but ride the ups and downs with them. Loved this book.

4.5 stars / This review will be posted on goodreads.com today.


Warning - this novel is VERY long. But it’s also amazing.

Jack Baker grew up in Flint Hills, Kansas. The son of a man who understood fire and the way to burn the prairies and a distant mother. His sister Evelyn, who was many years older, was the one family member he adored. He was a sickly child and always felt like he was a burden to his parents. Especially his mother.

Elizabeth Augustine grew up in a wealthy family, though her family had done many less than ethical things over the years to earn their money. Elizabeth wanted nothing more than to escape the expectations of her parents. Even though she wanted for nothing material, she wanted out of that family dynamic as soon as she could get out.

Jack & Elizabeth crossed paths in Chicago, where both had escaped unhappy childhoods to start over. Jack was in art school. Elizabeth studying five majors at university. Their windows were opposite one another, and they’d spy on the other, each hoping that one day they would actually meet.

The one day comes, and it’s as though fate has stepped in. They seem to be the perfect match for each other. From that point forward neither wants for anything ever again. They find their chosen family amongst their friends, and their lives move forward as they had always expected. Until they reach their so-called middle age, and nothing is as it was. Can Jack & Elizabeth find a way back to one another?

I did not read Hill’s first novel, The Nix, but I can imagine it was as amazing as I’ve heard. Wellness flows easily, and even though the novel is long, it is not a difficult read. It is very easy to both love and hate these characters throughout the novel. To question their choices along the way. It is thought provoking.

I tremendously enjoyed this novel. There is so much detail, that I almost feel I could read it again, because maybe I missed something the first time around.

As a huge fan of The Nix, I was excited to read Nathan Hill's newest novel. Like The Nix, this was a long read, so you have to be prepared for that. I love multigenerational and long-spanning stories so this was very up my alley and would recommend to fans of the genre. Like “The most fun we ever had” by Claire Lombardo it is a sweeping novel set in and around Chicago. Hill’s characters will stay with you, especially as they grow up and face challenge and obstacles. The relationship between the two main characters was my favorite part of the novel. If you have the stamina, I highly recommend Wellness.

Jack and Elizabeth are college students living in Chicago when they meet and fall in love. Their connection is immediate, and they're confident they will build a life full of passion and adventure. Twenty years later, their relationship is breaking down. Jack's work as an artist and teacher isn't fulfilling or earning him enough money. Elizabeth's work involves deceit, which she believes is for the common good. The two are at an impasse brought about by purchasing and building a new condo, their "forever home." Nathan Hill explores these characters and their marriage through asides and flashbacks. Readers learn about their families, wounds, ideologies, and regrets. Wellness is an intricately crafted novel that covers a lot of ground, yet the story is ultimately a love story about two misfits who found each other when the time was right. I've not read anyone else who writes like Nathan Hill. This book is a gem. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy.

I had high hopes for this and maybe this just wasn't for me. Jack and Elizabeth both had horrible upbringings and it was never clear if they shared their pasts with each other. After both watching each other in their apartments they finally meet and Jack feels they are soulmates. Fast forward 20 years and Jack is still an adjunct professor and Elizabeth studies placebos. I felt that just as I was getting involved in the narrative the author would veer off for pages on Toby being a picky eater and what Elizabeth was doing about it, Jack finding porn on the internet and the algorithms Facebook uses and it went on for so long I'd forget what the point was. I liked Jack but Elizabeth not so much. If this could be edited down probably a couple hundred pages I would have really enjoyed it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for providing me with a digital copy.

The Chicago underground art scene was on fire in the 1990's. It's quite the backdrop for Nathan Hill's newest novel, WELLNESS.

We meet a young man and woman who meet by chance across a dark alley. When they finally meet in person sparks fly, hearts pound, and love is in the air. Then they decide to take it to the next level: they get married. Twenty years later these same two lovebirds wonder what happened. Where is the love. Parenting and life itself provide much fodder for division. So... will they stay, or will they go?

Wellness is an extremely thoughtful look at how relationships shape people, and vice versa -- taking a somewhat basic meet-cute of two neighbors staring into each other's windows and then finally meeting into an epic story enveloping their careers, upbringing, fields of study, and atmosphere as their present day arc tracks with suburban striving and the gentrification of the artsy Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago.
Jack and Elizabeth come to Chicago from very different places. He flees modest means rural Kansas in pursuit of an art degree, following very much in his older sister's footsteps. She flees the East coast wealth of 3 generations of opportunists that happened upon and capitalized on every trend from railroads to cotton; while supporting unscrupulous clientele. Each of them was misunderstood and mistreated by their parents, as we see in flashback of increasing intensity and trauma.
They come together and work through the stages from infatuation to domestic complications as they raise their young son as best they can and latch on to various popular psychology fads for relationships, parenting, etc. Most interesting are their careers that spring off from their college experiences. Jack stays in academia, shifting from painting to abstract photographic printing based on the chemicals for developing film rather than actually exposing the lens. Elizabeth heads up the titular Wellness -- a company that ingeniously tests placebo "cures" and the conditions required to get customers in the correct mental state to make them "work."
Wellness is very enlightening about the times we live in and how difficult they are to navigate -- the complexities of professional, familial, financial, and social pressures and the strain they put on a relationship, and how the images we construct of ourselves and the world can reach a breaking point when confronted with reality. As Elizabeth learns from her mentor in placebo studies, you can have certainty or reality but not both because reality defies certainty by being forever in flux. The flashbacks peel back the onion to explain how behaviors and reactions are molded by past experiences that set expectations.
The bibliography at the ends shows how so many of the topics come from real research, from the famous marshmallow test of delayed gratification to the questions that may be most effective to make a first date fall in love with you. When a theory is exposed for being oversimplistic or missing a key variable, what does that mean for those life decisions you made based on it?