The Nix

Decent story. I think the most memorable section involved snacks. Certainly worth listening to once.

Mooi boek. Prachtig begin over hoe een moeder zichzelf uit het leven van haar zoon verdwijnt.
In de loop van het boek steeds meer de kant van de moeder opgetrokken, en verder weg van de zoon. Mooie beschrijvingen van de studentenrellen in Chigago in 1968, met een fijne gastrol voor Allen Ginsberg (“Ommmmmmmmmm”!)

Enige minpuntjes (en daarom geen 5*): einde te netjes is, iets teveel “happy ending” (al is dat een geheel verkeerde beschrijving voor het einde :-); iets teveel “cruft” rondom de zoon met een aantal personages die niet heel veel toevoegden; misschien iets teveel een zo-moeder-zo-zoon gefilosofeer op het eind.

This is not a book I would have been likely to pick up and read without someone pointing me at it, but I'm glad I did.

The Nix is a story primarily about our protagonist, Stephen, and our runner-up protagonist, his mother Faye. Faye left Stephen as a child and we enter the story with Stephen as an adult learning that his mother has made the national news. The book then ranges around time, letting us learn more about both of their lives, from their perspectives as well as a handful of side characters.

To be honest, I struggled a bit to get into this book. Not that the story wasn't interesting, but I think that this author's writing style took me a while to adjust to. Or perhaps his sense of humor and mine don't quite connect (I read more than one review saying this book was funny, but while I could see it being witty/sarcastic/dry humor, it never made me want to laugh).

All that being said, after I got into it I found the story really fascinating (Faye's story even more so than Stephen's) and the last few chapters really wrapped up the story so nicely, I was very satisfied at the end.

Bonus points! The author is from Iowa and large parts of the story take place there - I found the representation extremely well done. Also bonus points if you have interest in 60s counterculture and particularly the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Extra bonus points if your family has history in Norway. I also hugely enjoyed the side stories clearly poking fun at World of Warcraft and similar games.

This is a very readable yarn about a man, Samuel, whose mother, Faye, walked out when he was a boy. Many, many things happen in this book, some of which we might not need to know about. We're introduced to and spend significant time with characters who serve a minor purpose and then sink out of the story. If the storytelling hadn't been so good, I might not have finished the book. As it was, I enjoyed the read but didn't think it was anything special.

Considering all of the accolades this book received, I was underwhelmed. I felt like the author included every thought and idea he'd ever had, just in case he didn't get a chance to publish another book in his lifetime.

I would definitely recommend The Nix. You have to be in the mood for something more literary than sit-back-and-enjoy, but overall I thought this book was a well-written piece of art. Everything just fit together so perfectly for me: the writing style, the multiple characters and viewpoints, the nuggets of humor in between the more serious themes...I just really like this one.

For my full review, visit http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2017/12/review-the-nix/

So. Good. This book has everything.

For the first half of this book I was getting ready to proclaim it as book of the year material. It's funny, and sharply written, with some brilliant sentences and one liners. Unfortunately I felt the second half ran out of steam just a little bit. Perhaps pruning fifty or so pages would have helped. It's still an excellent book and comes highly recommended, but in the end it doesn't quite reach the superlative bracket it was so close to.

Such a timely read. It's a love letter to introverts facing a post-truth world where the brash bully their way to the prize with a complete disregard for anyone other than themselves. Hill careens wildly about exploring every shiny idea that presents itself as he jumps back and forth from the present to the 1968 Chicago riots, to 1940's Norway; from the Iraq War to online quests. With all these balls in the air he somehow never manages to miss a beat.

It's another debut novel that is filled to overflowing with a lifetime of ideas distilled onto the page. It is a credit to Hill's talent that the book doesn't topple under the sheer mass of ideas, even if it felt like there were some head scratching tangents that keep it from being a complete 5 star book.

Nix is passionate, sweet, cringeworthy, and full of naïveté.

Remember all the opportunities to make poor choices you've had in your life, especially in youth? Nathan Hill puts those choices under a microscope for two very different characters, mother and son, in Nix.

The main characters are well developed, and the supporting characters get varying degrees of attention. The overwhelming need to know, more than the action, drives this story forward. The book unfolds back and forth in time and from different perspectives. Hill sets the scenes well, giving enough detail so you can fill in a picture in your mind.

This story, which I read because it is a book club book, is outside of my typical fantasy genre, but I would recommend this book to adult readers who enjoy memoir or believable fiction. Warning: There are sexual scenes, and they may be difficult for younger readers.

Well, what to say... This was well written with many interesting details woven through the story, but I just didn't really care about the characters at all. Meh.