Wellness
A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)
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3.9 • 324 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • The New York Times best-selling author of The Nix is back with a poignant and witty novel about a modern marriage and the bonds that keep people together. Mining the absurdities of contemporary society, Wellness reimagines the love story with a healthy dose of insight, irony, and heart.
"A stunning novel about the stories that we tell about our lives and our loves, and how we sustain relationships throughout time—it's beyond remarkable, both funny and heartbreaking, sometimes on the same page.” —NPR
When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the gritty '90s Chicago art scene, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in the thriving underground scene with an appreciative kindred spirit. Fast-forward twenty years to suburban married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter the often-baffling pursuits of health and happiness from polyamorous would-be suitors to home-renovation hysteria.
For the first time, Jack and Elizabeth struggle to recognize each other, and the no-longer-youthful dreamers are forced to face their demons, from unfulfilled career ambitions to childhood memories of their own dysfunctional families. In the process, Jack and Elizabeth must undertake separate, personal excavations, or risk losing the best thing in their lives: each other.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A couple sinking into middle age wonder where the magic went in Nathan Hill’s witty novel about modern life and love. Jack and Elizabeth were college students in the ’90s when they met and fell in love against the backdrop of Chicago’s hip underground music and art scene. Twenty years later, the married couple are contemplating separate bedrooms in a condo they can barely afford and contending with an eight-year-old son with chronic tantrums. As his well-meaning protagonists struggle with the everyday frustrations of suburban life, Hill repeatedly flashes back to examine how their earlier experiences—and even their family histories—make their current problems seem inevitable. As laugh-out-loud funny as Hill’s debut novel, The Nix, Wellness is a wonderfully sharp satire of contemporary life—and a surprisingly emotional read about how love can morph into something else.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hill (The Nix) blends a family chronicle with cultural critique in his expansive and surprisingly tender latest. Jack Baker, a photographer, and Elizabeth Augustine, a self-styled polymath, live across the street from each other as college students in 1990s Chicago, where each spies on the other through their windows. After they meet face-to-face at one of the alt rock shows Jack photographs, they connect over their interest in the local music scene and fall in love. Twenty years later, the couple and their eight-year-old son are planning a move to the suburbs. Jack, who's now an adjunct professor of art history, and Elizabeth, a researcher for a lab contracted by the FDA to study the placebo effect in wellness products, both wonder what's left of their bohemian youth and their long-ago voyeuristic romance. One night, they're invited to a sex club by another couple they meet at a bar, with whom they reminisce about the "abandoned" neighborhood where they first met, prompting a waiter to call out Jack for erasing the community's Puerto Rican population. As the Dickensian chronicle shifts between past and present and probes such issues as gentrification, toxic internet culture, and modern parenting, the realities of the couple's meet cute come into focus, and they learn the truth behind their first impressions. In the end, Jack and Elizabeth's story speaks to the way people craft narratives to give their lives meaning, and it asks whether believing in those narratives ultimately helps or harms. This stunning novel of ideas never loses sight of its humanity.
Customer Reviews
Started ok but then…
My initial reaction while reading was, I was engrossed in the story and wanted to see where it led. And just as I was losing interest as the book would drone on about certain things, like someone telling a really long story and sharing every single, mundane detail, that you’re like, “you’re losing me, I’m forgetting where we stared”, kinda vibe
… just as all that’s happening and I’m starting to think I might officially be over this book, the author starts talking about a character that lived 100 years prior. It feels so unrelated.
I’m officially stuck. I had to stop and even write this review because I’m taken aback that I’ve been given even more reason to jump ship here.
Almost like someone who doesn’t read the room. Like, ok, I gave you a pass on two really long, drawn out stories, but now you take the reins again and go on another seemingly, unrelated tangent.
I mean who knows, maybe it’ll get great, and maybe I’ll try to keep powering through, which will quickly lead to skimming, but my patience is low.
And if it is going to get great, at least throw me a carrot. A little enticing snippet to keep me here.
Im reading this for a book club but if it doesn’t wrap it up and come back to the original story which was already dry but somewhat relatable, I might not be seeing this to the end. Or I’ll save it for a night I can’t possibly sleep and use it for that.
I don’t typically leave reviews and I don’t like to sound annoyed but we have some left fielding happening here and who ok’d this?!
Edited to add: I came back to try again and I feel hoodwinked. It’s like a totally different story. I thought I accidentally changed books. I just don’t know 😆 there has to be some lesson or relation to the original story.
Loved this book
Very interesting story about the power of placebo and social media- no wonder conspiracy theories abound- also interesting story of one couple’s marriage and how childhood can have a lasting impact-
Not a fan
Read a good amount of the book, but couldn’t get into it.