The Nix by Nathan Hill

What a disappointment. It shouldn't have been, but it was. The Nix by Nathan Hill was bad, and I should have seen it coming.

I promise I began the novel with an open mind and open heart. I got caught up in the publisher's marketing scheme. I looked longingly at the novel's cover on my computer screen before it even came out. I read the lengthy list of promises authors and reviewers made, saying that this would be the book to read this year. My beloved John Irving shared a positive review. My heart fluttered.

Like most heavily praised, widely read popular fiction that sparks my curiosity because of its following, it left me confused. Confused at how in the world people could stand this novel, let alone call it great.

The Nix is an attempt to strike the heart of the average middle-class American. Hill draws our attention to little quirks of our time and place, like the potentially faux-faded t-shirt of the college-aged girl and her skewed logic at what society owes her, an obsession with video games, and this in the very beginning. Rather than artfully craft these time-markers into the story, the story becomes the time-markers. The novel reflects what many see and feel on an average day, framing it in such a way that is supposed to be endearing. We are supposed to be endeared to this character and this author because they notice the things we do, and write them down. It wants people to feel in on the joke of life, but it fails to artfully craft this joke of life into anything interesting.Nothing new is shared, no interesting perspective, no wisdom. One key to great literature is some form of newness, which can take many forms. This novel takes none of them.

Beyond being simply blah, it reads like a first draft NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month) Challenge. It is all over the place and oozes with self-aware irony in the worst way. The way that the guy looking through records at Urban Outfitters would. The novel tries hard to be funny, but it fails. It tries to tell a story, but meanders down many a winding road leading nowhere. On top of all that, we are offered low-key sexism and a severe lack of character development.

It is a hodgepodge reflection of other books that have already been written, and it goes on and on and on. It isn't good, but with all this press it will inevitably be well-received.