Reviews

Ostensibly, this is the story of a couple that’s grown apart over the course of their 20-year marriage. Formerly edgy and part of the Chicago art scene, they’re now typical suburban parents and struggling to reconcile their past with their present.

What I loved: I love Nathan Hill's writing. I love his so-relatable-it’s-scary (seriously, is he reading my mind?) main characters with their neurotic (but also rational) worries and his side characters that are almost caricatures except that you've totally met them, and the way he captures the ridiculousness and humor of modern society. I love the deep-dives into topics I had no idea I cared about. I love a behind-the-scenes look at someone else’s job.

I also love how Hill gently experiments with form. In The Nix, there's a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book embedded within the larger novel, and in Wellness, the story of a key relationship is told through a series of short chapters exploring the inner workings of different Facebook algorithms, and it totally works. (Hill’s use of increasingly frantic academic citations in another chapter - with spot-on narration by Ari Fliakos, who masterfully brings Hill’s words to life in the audio version - also actually made me laugh out loud.)

What didn’t work for me:

Spoiler

I don’t think I’m ever going to love a late-reveal "buried trauma" plotline. That's partly because I don't like it as a plot device, and partly because I struggle with dark themes like trauma. (There are nuances, and I make exceptions, but it's not something I often seek out.) That said, if you don't share these concerns, I think it’s actually well done here.

This wasn't a perfect book for me, and I almost gave it four stars - still a very solid book - but ultimately that didn't feel right. Hill's creativity and his sharp writing are on another level even if I didn't personally love

Spoiler

that trauma was such a driving force in this story.

I ended up at 4.5 stars. If, like me, you loved The Nix and/or enjoy a sprawling Franzen-esque Great American Novel, I don’t think you’ll regret picking up Wellness.

almena's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

5.0

ibnu12's review against another edition

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5.0

Best book I've read this year and I've read a lot, a deeply moving portrait of a meet-cute romance after the end. Telling the tale of 2 lonely people who seem to have discovered the cure in each other and chronolcling the pitfalls and triumphs of life.

It's a little overwhelming just now much the author wants to convey to you through the lense of the stories but it is all excellently executed and I didn't have a single dull moment in any of them. His chronicling the various kind of adolescence misery and loneliness, the pathologies and aneixetys of parenthood and the disatsifaction from relationships is astonishing. Parts of the story where he switched to the perspectives of the algorithm are also excellent.

A book with real pathos and sharp observations about the absurdity of 20th century American life

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