Wellness

Nathan Hill's second novel is too long (600 pages) and self-indulgent. But if you can wade through the author's eagerness to share EVERYTHING he has ever learned about (deep breath): social media algorithms, gentrification, the placebo affect, wellness culture, parenthood, young children's eating habits, landscape painting, prairie fires, and other subjects that “puzzle, amuse, or amaze” him, you will find a painfully real but hopeful story of a marriage between two broken people (and honestly, who amongst us isn't at least a little bit broken?). Recommended if you have a lot of time on your hands and don't mind reading a book by an author who apparently never heard the literary advice “Kill your darlings.”