Wellness

A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)

By: Nathan Hill

Narrated by: Ari Fliakos

Length: 18 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2023 Nathan Hill (P)2023 Random House Audio

you have to believe it'll work

this is the first book I've ever pre-ordered, as in ever, in my life. I usually wait for reviews to trickle in, end of year award buzz, the book club recommendations, but after reading the richly textured and beautiful debut by Nathan Hill, The Nix, I found myself eagerly awaiting more.

Hill does not disappoint in this story about disappointments, the way that life grinds downward, the many people you are in the same lifetime while retaining the same core personality flaws and character traits that make life a coherent but largely confusing mess.

Retaining from The Nix his brilliant observational eye toward the conversational style and pace of a certain type of Midwestern bourgeois hysteria. a mix of vague half remembered and oafish regurgitations of news stories and pseudoscientific jargon that could so easily dip into being lazy generational writing about "those damn millennials" but is played in such a pitch perfect tone in dialogue as to be literally indistinguishable from the dozens if not hundreds of conversations like this you can regularly get if you interact for more than a couple minutes with anyone online enough to become, like the characters here, rotten husks of people completely paralyzed by the taxonomical precision they can diagnose their neurosis with and the simultaneous desire to find literally any magical reason their neurotic breakdown is not actually occuring.

in some ways, the best single word to boil this entire story down to is Faith. what does it mean to have faith, to believe, etc. what does it mean to be faithful, to desire and respect and have and hold, what is it to have your faith shattered in your family and relationship and your own image of yourself. It is funny, it is tragic, it is at times, so uncomfortable it makes you want to crawl out of your own skin at the reflexive memories this book evokes of every awful breakup you've ever had.

also Ari Fliakos is BACK, and his reading is just as good if not better than his one for The Nix. his way of reading dialogue makes the characters truly pop.

I cannot recommend Wellness enough, go out of your way to pick this up.

Excellent Book Throughout

This book hit all the right notes for me because of excellent writing and narration.

I listen to a lot of books, and this one was among my favorites.

Wow! Best book I have read this year.

What a rich tapestry of a novel. By far the best book I have read this year.

Couldn’t stop listening

I loved The Nix and I loved this book. Engaging, realistic narrative of family, marriage, love and how one’s “origin story” can negatively shape our lives until we decide to leave it behind and live our best life, flawed as it may ultimately be. Narration was superb.

The narrator was the best I’ve ever heard.

Wow. This was an incredible story. I love the art, and science all intertwined with a story that was a realistic representation of a long term marriage after a bohemian courtship.

New favorite book

Randomly purchased and was so pleasantly surprised. Beautifully written, I got lost in the world created by Hill. Hoping he has more to read.

Review of Wellness

This book was amazing, so many elements. I was entranced. it was an Oprah recommendation, so not surprising. But a brilliant read!!

Very Good

This book really hit the mark for me. Such good character development and backstory reveals. I never wanted it to end.

Excellent

This is the best book I have “read” in a very long time. You will not be disappointed.

Highly recommend,

Witty, heartfelt exploration of the stories that shape our personal identity, how we love, and the struggle to become the author of our own experience.