The Nix by Nathan Hill
Fiction
2016
Narrated by Ari Fliakos
Finished on December 2, 2025
Rating: 2/5 (Meh)
Publisher's Blurb:
It’s 2011, and Samuel Andresen-Anderson hasn’t seen his mother, Faye, in decades—not since she abandoned the family when he was a boy. Now she’s reappeared, having committed an absurd crime that electrifies the nightly news and inflames a politically divided country. The media paints Faye as a radical hippie with a sordid past, but as far as Samuel knows, his mother was an ordinary girl who married her high-school sweetheart. Which version of his mother is true? Two facts are certain: she’s facing some serious charges, and she needs Samuel’s help.
To save her, Samuel will have to embark on his own journey, uncovering long-buried secrets about the woman he thought he knew, secrets that stretch across generations and have their origin all the way back in Norway, home of the mysterious Nix. As he does so, Samuel will confront not only Faye’s losses but also his own lost love, and will relearn everything he thought he knew about his mother, and himself.
One Goodreads' reviewer said she read The Nix in one sitting. 732 pages!
The audiobook is 21 hours and 42 minutes.
It took me 9 weeks to finish!
I let days go by without listening.
8 of my friends gave it either 4 or 5 stars.
The World of Warcraft-like gaming chapters drove me crazy.
One sentence (in a gaming chapter) was 14 pages in length. Listening to it made me want to scream, "Take a breath!"
Why didn't I quit?
Well, audiobooks have a way of taking hold of me unless the reader is just awful, and Ari Fliakos is not awful. As a matter of fact, his narration is probably the only reason why I continued listening.
And, there was one funny (albeit sad) line, so I was hoping for more like this:
Samuel thought how his father married to his mother was like a spoon married to a garbage disposal.
I listened to Wellness (aso read by Ari Fliakos) this past May. The book was ok, but I didn't really care for it. Since I had a copy of The Nix on my shelf, I decided to try a read/listen approach.
Suffice it to say, I don't plan to read anything else by Nathan Hill.
As a good friend recently wrote, "not every book is for every person."
I heard that recently from a friend - not every book is for every person. So true. I liked Wellness but not enough to seek out more by this author.
ReplyDeleteTina, I think it was the same friend who said that. :)
DeleteI've told library patrons for years - there's a book for every person and a person for every book. Don't necessarily overlap. Right? Went to a 'Reader's choice (which means everyone comes and talks about what they have been reading) book group on Tuesday afternoon. My second time and it's been interesting. Most of the people don't really read books that I would be interested in, but I like hearing their thoughts. Anyway, one of the gentlemen there said that I had recommended a mystery book series at the last meeting (it was the Lady Sherlock series by Sherry Thomas). He tried it and thought it was amazingly bad. I just laughed and said....'there's a book for every person and a person for every book' - ha!!!
ReplyDeleteKay, I like that idea for a reading group. No assigned book, just sharing what each person is currently reading. I may propose (to my book group) to either do that every other month or start a spin-off group. Funny remark about the Lady Sherlock series. I remember feeling crushed when a friend said she couldn't stand Beach Music (Pat Conroy), which was a favorite of mine at the time.
DeleteFrom. your description, I will not be reading this book. Gaming? Super long sentences? Nope. Not for me.
ReplyDeleteHelen, it's definitely not all about gaming. Not like Ready Player One or Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow. But there are chapters that focus on a computer game that I found dull and unnecessary to the story.
DeleteSorry this one didn't work for you. "Not every book is for every person" has become my mantra lately, especially when recommending books to my mother and sisters. As far as The Nix goes, I have not interest in gaming and skimmed some of those sections, don't remember the long sentences, also thought the audio added to my experience, and I really loved the ending. It made the book for me... but I couldn't tell you exactly what happened now! I've met Nathan Hill a couple of times in FL and liked him a lot. I'm planning to read Wellness just in case I run into him again ;-) It has the same narrator, so it'll be a read/listen combination, too.
ReplyDeleteJoAnn, I wish I could have skimmed the gaming sections, but I was listening to the audio, which makes skimming a bit more difficult, especially while listening in the car. The one long sentence was in a gaming chapter, so you missed it. (It was when Pwnage was suffering a health issue toward the end of the novel.) If you enjoyed this book, I'm sure you'll love Wellness. The narrator for the audibook is really good in both books, isn't he?
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