Books I Read in January 2024

Wellness by Nathan Hill is set in the 1990s when Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students amid a vibrant art scene in Chicago. The novel follows the ups and downs of their relationship over the next 20 years through to middle age when they are married with a young son. Jack is a photographer while Elizabeth works at a wellness lab specialising in using placebos to treat disorders. The character development is exceptionally detailed, although some of the deep dives about psychology and algorithms could have been a little more concise. Still, unlike most doorstopper novels which deal with complex social issues – ‘Wellness’ is a hefty 600+ pages – it doesn’t take itself too seriously thanks to Hill’s sharp eye for humour and cynicism. I enjoyed Hill’s debut The Nix a lot and his second novel doesn’t disappoint. Many thanks to Pan Macmillan for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

Green Dot by Madeleine Gray is a debut novel about a young Australian woman who has an affair with an older married work colleague. Hera is a sarcastic graduate in her mid-20s in an office job she hates as a moderator when she meets Arthur who works as a journalist. I can understand how some readers will be put off by Hera’s obsession with someone who is clearly wasting her time and never going to keep his promise to leave his wife, but I think Gray has pointedly made the situation deliberately infuriating, keeping Arthur very distant while Hera tries to make something completely irrational make sense to her. Gray is also very good at depicting the banality of office work and how social media weaves its way through everyday life for millennials. Many thanks to Weidenfeld and Nicholson for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

All The Houses I’ve Ever Lived In by Kieran Yates examines the state of housing in Britain today through the 20 different properties Yates has lived in during her childhood and early adulthood. These include a terrace in Southall as a young child, a flat above a car showroom in Wales then back to London to live in student halls of residence followed by a depressing merry-go-round of private rentals. It’s a clever mix of personal memoir and nuanced reporting on the housing crisis. The farce of housemate auditions generates some amusing anecdotes, but also reveals a lot about how discrimination cuts across race, class and gender. Yates reveals in the final chapter that the advance she received for writing ‘All The Houses I’ve Ever Lived In’ enabled her to put down a deposit to buy a property with her husband. Ironically, the book itself is a timely reminder that fewer people are able to achieve home ownership or even feel safe and secure in rented accommodation.

I read One Day by David Nicholls in summer 2010 and revisited it ahead of the much anticipated Netflix adaptation. Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew meet on the night of their graduation at Edinburgh University on 15th July 1988. They stay in touch as friends and the novel follows their lives on St Swithin’s Day each year over the next two decades while they navigate their 20s and 30s. Emma lacks self-confidence and is a waitress, a teacher and then a writer while Dexter comes from a more privileged background and becomes a TV presenter. The snapshot scenes usually explore the aftermath of major life events rather than tackling them directly. Apart from Emma’s boyfriend Ian, the supporting characters hadn’t stayed very clear in my memory, but That Ending certainly did, and although it wasn’t unexpected this time round, its impact is still keenly felt. I have watched the first six episodes of the Netflix series so far and am very much enjoying it, particularly because it is so faithful to the pacy dialogue in the novel.