Wellness: A Novel (Oprah’s Book Club)

8 reviews for Wellness: A Novel (Oprah’s Book Club)

1. 

   LindaL – 14/01/2025

   A statement about our times…relationships and cultural phenomena
   Wellness by Nathan HillWellness is a well-written, engaging, and thought-provoking novel. The New York Times describes Wellness as “a unique blend of satire and realism.” There are numerous story arcs. While some are undeniably satirical, others focus on the complexities of modern life, tackling the growth of technology and a wide array of cultural challenges with a realistic lens.In the early 1990s, one protagonist, Jack Baker, leaves his family where he grew up in Kansas, rejects life on the prairie, and moves to Chicago to pursue a life as a photographer and artist. After spying on Elizabeth through her apartment window in a manner that would lead to charges of voyeurism today, he meets Elizabeth Augustine, the other protagonist. Elizabeth also rejected her family, a wealthy one from Connecticut. They fall in love immediately, then marry and eventually have a child.Jack and Elizabeth’s child, Toby, has atypical social behaviors, and they disagree on the best way to integrate him into society. Childrearing is difficult, and their decision to build a forever home outside the city leads to several unanticipated setbacks. They soon realize they have grown apart and may not continue to enjoy the status of soulmates. As they experience issues in relationship status a decade after meeting, the novel delves into their back stories and how their families and experiences affected their personalities and life decisions.The novel only sometimes progresses linearly, but we continually learn more about Jack and Elizabeth, including their formative years, moral compasses, and careers. Elizabeth works at a company called Wellness, whose name plays into the book’s title and predominant theme. When the story focuses on Elizabeth’s career, the reader cannot help but consider what wellness means in the 21st century. The Wellness company provides placebo studies for corporations and organizations. Elizabeth’s role in the company evolves to include more power but devolves when some of the company’s studies become less ethical. Jack’s photography and art inclinations as a youngster have led to his becoming an adjunct faculty member at a college. He is most comfortable with hands-on artwork and less comfortable promoting himself on social media, which is an HR concern at the college.Through the events of Jack and Elizabeth’s upbringing, marriage, family life, careers, and life decisions, Nathan Hill creates scenarios that force us to think about myriad societal themes. These include but are not limited to the following:· Acceptance of one’s children’s dreams· Expectations of marital fidelity and fragility of marriages· Characteristics of people in upscale, urban, and other neighborhoods· Value of affordable housing· Implications of rallying for environmental concerns· The tenuous nature of friendships· Competence of builders and landowners· Effects of social media on different segments of the population, including viral social media rants· Dualities of wealth and poverty, class distinctions, dishonest accumulation of money· The omnipresence of family secrets· Placebos, fake medicine, scam doctors, and con artists posing as health professionals· Decisions about what is valuable in life· Lessons from unexpected places

2. 

   hikebone – 14/01/2025

   Author is an excellent writer, but this is book is a little too wordy
   This is the story of Jack and Elizabeth who fall in love at first sight. They are both artistic and quirky, the products of dysfunctional, even cruel, parents. Wellness is a very good and interesting well-written story with subplots that explore the philosophical “nothingness” of love, art, and the placebo effect in medical treatment. The book is overlong and takes a diversion of 3 or 4 chapters with Jack arguing with his estranged father about how to use the computer, email, facebook, etc. I had to skim these many pages looking for keywords, but got nothing out of it.

3. 

   booksandbliss – 14/01/2025

   if you’re trying to decide if this book is for you or not…
   I was so excited to get my hands on this book; it seems to have all the themes that speak to me. As a fellow Gen X’er, straight, married with child, educated, and moderately if not highly neurotic, this book seemed to be written for a demographic like me.And indeed, by the second page I had declared that I was in love with the story and the writing. Like Jack and Elizabeth’s courtship, the book starts on a high note. Nathan Hill’s writing is smart, witty, and engaging. I made it halfway through the book without much difficulty, even though I was initially kind of daunted by the length.It was around page 300 that I found myself losing steam, not unlike Jack and Elizabeth’s marriage. Picking up the book each day was no longer a priority for me…the story had started to bog down with long chapters on parenting, the placebo effect, prairie fires, Facebook algorithms…I normally love reading about parenting, and I can so relate to Elizabeth’s neuroses parenting in the 2000’s, but that long drawn-out chapter on her stress feeding her son had my eyes criss crossing…Hill has clearly done his research and he has an extensive bibliography at the end of the book to show for it. The intervening chapters are basically academic journal articles and mini-lectures weaved into the story. If you love academic and intellectual discussions and diverse and detailed tangents you may relish this, but if you just want to read a straightforward story then you will likely find this tedious.The irony is that while I feel I am the perfect demographic for this book, I am also part of a demographic that doesn’t have the bandwidth to appreciate and enjoy this book. I can objectively say that Wellness is quite the ambitious masterpiece – Nathan Hill is clearly brilliant. Unfortunately, I am exhausted and burnt out, from decades of work, childcare, parent care…from technology and the polarization found on social media…from all the things that this book satirizes. As much as I want to really reflect on and dissect what I have just read, I find the book too unwieldy to do so. By page 400 I just wanted to be done, but I had come too far to DNF (abandon it). There is a mild payoff in the penultimate chapters, when we see the traumas that took place in Jack’s and Elizabeth’s youth that had shaped the people they became. It was just a long wait for that payoff. By the time I was done I was crying in my head “Get me something fast and easy to read next!” (But one of these days, I would like to sit down and take some time to think more about the book.)

4. 

   Margaret Nero – 14/01/2025

   Wellness is by far the most incredible book I’ve read in a long time! Nathan Hill weaves contemporary topics so cleverly into the lives of the two main characters. I enjoyed learning about topics such as algorithms and placebos. A wonderful book- I highly recommend it!

5. 

   monsieur raymond deldique – 14/01/2025

   Vous ne regretterez pas la lecture de ce magnifique ouvrage.A ne pas manquer !

6. 

   MR. EDMUND LLOYD WEST – 14/01/2025

   Nathan Hill has the ability to write superb humorous and tragic prose that is both entertaining and intellectually stimulating – sometimes in the same sentence ! The story is compelling and exciting whilst exploring various rabbit holes seamlessly incorporated. Looking at the bibliography it is easy to see why Nathan is so foot sure about so many technicalities. He is well read and hugely articulate. This and The Nix are both masterpieces and book clubs and advanced level curricula would be well advised to visit these works as there are abundant ideas to mull over and discuss. Plus of course the sheer entertainment value of these very readable gems.

7. 

   Mr Fast – 14/01/2025

   Demasiados intentos por parecer moderno, junto con una excesiva longitud de la novela, me hicieron dejarlo a la mitad.

8. 

   Marie – 14/01/2025

   Ich habe für das Buch lange gebraucht in dem Sinne, dass ich es erstmal weggelegt hatte, weil ich in der Phase aber auch nicht viel Zeit hatte. Insgesamt ist es ein sehr gutes interessantes Buch über ein Pärchen über verschiedene Lebensphasen hinweg. Jedoch keine typische Romantik Geschichte, sondern deren Hintergründe, aufwachsen usw und wie sich die beziehungsdynamik über die Jahre hinweg sowie durch externe und interne Einflüsse ändert. Sehr spannend. Dazu auch Einblicke in das jeweilige Berufsleben und andere interessante Themen Gebiete wie zb der Algorithmus von Facebook. Sehr empfehlenswert!