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jenbsbooks 's review for:
Wellness
by Nathan Hill
informative
I'm really not sure how to rate this ... even how I felt about it. For 600+ pages, it actually kept me very involved, but I don't know that I could really give a recap. It was ALL OVER the place, although everything ended up tying together. It covered SO MUCH stuff. I'm not exactly sure how much is actually real (when citing studies and such), or if much is just made up for the book (it IS fiction). It feels like the "facts" presented within the story are real. There is a bibliography (I wasn't able to get a Kindle copy, but could access an epub version to see some in print) and it is loooooooong ... pages and pages of studies cited. I would have appreciated some author notes letting me know fact from fiction ... despite all the credits in the bibliography, my attempt to look up any of the other references got mixed results (some I could find in a Google search, others I couldn't).
Within the simple story of a husband and wife, there is a lot brought up on marriage/love/sex and parenthood, as might be expected. Beyond that though, there is a look at medical studies/placebo and wellness culture (this was super interesting, thought provoking, tons of discussion aspects); social media, misinformation, algorithms and conspiracy (interesting, and hilarious with its presentation!); gentrification, authenticity, real estate; discussions on the prairie/forced fires, ponzi schemes, the KKK.
Content Concerns - there was a lot of sex, proFanity (47).
So overall ...left feeling mixed. Liked it. A lot. Didn't love it. Would actually LOVE others to read it so that I could discuss it, but I probably wouldn't recommend it to most friends/family because of the explicit content. It kept my interest, but I'm also glad it's over. It's likely that I'll want to look back on this at some point, might buy a Kindle copy if it was inexpensive. The narration was good, not great ... 3rd person, mainly two POVs, but it included others (family history) ... one narrator/male. It shifted between present and past tense ... I couldn't exactly tell when/why it would change.
NPR review - https://www.npr.org/2023/09/20/1200197882/book-review-nathan-hill-wellness
Within the simple story of a husband and wife, there is a lot brought up on marriage/love/sex and parenthood, as might be expected. Beyond that though, there is a look at medical studies/placebo and wellness culture (this was super interesting, thought provoking, tons of discussion aspects); social media, misinformation, algorithms and conspiracy (interesting, and hilarious with its presentation!); gentrification, authenticity, real estate; discussions on the prairie/forced fires, ponzi schemes, the KKK.
Content Concerns - there was a lot of sex, proFanity (47).
So overall ...left feeling mixed. Liked it. A lot. Didn't love it. Would actually LOVE others to read it so that I could discuss it, but I probably wouldn't recommend it to most friends/family because of the explicit content. It kept my interest, but I'm also glad it's over. It's likely that I'll want to look back on this at some point, might buy a Kindle copy if it was inexpensive. The narration was good, not great ... 3rd person, mainly two POVs, but it included others (family history) ... one narrator/male. It shifted between present and past tense ... I couldn't exactly tell when/why it would change.
NPR review - https://www.npr.org/2023/09/20/1200197882/book-review-nathan-hill-wellness