The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Hill, Nathan. Wellness. Vintage Books, 2023.

The novel occurs over the course of multiple decades in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century and is primarily set in and around Chicago. The novel’s chronological order is not linear as the past is interspersed with the present, allowing the author to draw juxtapositions and correlations between what happened in the past and where the characters currently are in the early decades of the twenty-first century.

Jack and Elizabeth are the novel’s protagonists. Jack grew up on the plains of Kansas. His father was more open and welcoming in his youth, but after Evelyn, Jack’s sister, dies, he becomes withdrawn. Jack’s mother, Ruth, was always withdrawn until Evelyn died at which point Ruth starts to support the family and goes to church frequently and requires Jack to attend because she blames him for Evelyn's death. Ruth is still quite harsh with her family. Jack never wanted to marry Ruth. He met and instantly fell in love with her younger sister, but since their father wanted the older daughter, Ruth, to marry first, Jack does what he believes is honorable and proposes to Ruth. Lawrence idolizes Evelyn when she is born, and this leads Ruth to resent both father and daughter. Meanwhile Jack, born many years later, is a sickly child who takes all the blame for his mother’s cruel and distant disposition. As a young adult, Evelyn comes to visit one day, and Ruth tells Jack to relay to his sister that she can watch her father conduct the controlled burns like she wanted to. There is miscommunication, and Evelyn ends up in the field that is set aflame and dies in the fire.

Elizabeth’s childhood was different. She grew up in a wealthy family that inherited a decent part of their wealth from ancestor’s ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Her mother is often absent and her father is abusive. In one instance he throws a tennis racket at her when she beats him in a game. In another instance, he breaks her smoothie glass and spills it all over her and the floor when she corrects his pronunciation of a word. Elizabeth moves frequently and therefore has no close friends.

Both Elizabeth and Jack move to Chicago as young adults to get away from their families. Their apartments are across from one another, and while neither of them knows it, they both watch each other from their windows. One day they meet at a bar where Jack is working as a photographer, and they fall quickly in love with each other. They have already created stories about who the other person is in their head. They both live in Wicker Park in buildings that have been or are being transformed. Jack lives in the Foundry which is being converted from an abandoned building into an invite-only community for artists. He gets this job when a man named Benjamin sees his Polaroid photography at an art show. Elizabeth and Jack become deeply involved in this community that strives to set themselves apart from mainstream culture. Eventually, however, members of their community move away and start families.

Elizabeth and Jack have a baby they name Toby. Toby has issues with eating, and this causes Elizabeth tremendous stress. As Toby gets older, he has issues with tantrums, and this leads Elizabeth to worry that he will end up like her father. The couple decides to put all of their money into buying a condo in upscale Park Shore, a suburban Chicago neighborhood. The building is being refurbished and will be called the Shipworks. A group of local Park Shore residents are opposed to the building because they fear renters will come in and the neighborhood will deteriorate.

Elizabeth meets a woman named Brandie as she tries to make friends for Toby. Brandie presents herself as a high functioning woman constantly in control. She insists on manifesting what it is that she wants. Brandie takes Elizabeth to a group she holds where everybody claims to already have what it is that they want. At first, Elizabeth believes that they have actually achieved these results, but later in the meeting she learns that they have not. For example, the woman who claims to have manifested the curing of her diabetes still has a doctor who insists her blood work indicates diabetes. It is Brandie’s group that is protesting the Shipworks, but she stops pursuing this when she meets Elizabeth.

Brandie introduces Elizabeth to a couple named Kyle and Kate. The two have a sexually open relationship, and they invite Elizabeth and Jack to a sex party. Jack is already insecure about his relationship with his wife because Elizabeth seems to be pulling away from him. He tries to improve his life by getting in shape and maximizing his sex life through a program called The System. While he is initially turned off by the prospect of the sex party, he changes his mind, and they attend. In the end, their neediness turns off Kate and Kyle, and Elizabeth and Jack leave. On the way out, Brandie and her group are protesting the party, and they see Elizabeth.

Elizabeth works to heal people with placebos, and she gives Brandie a placebo when Brandie asks for something to help her fall back in love with her husband. Brandie believes the placebo is working when she tells Elizabeth that they cannot be friends anymore because she does not want the sexually perverted vibrations of Elizabeth around her because she is trying to manifest a healthy relationship with her husband. Elizabeth tells her that the medication was a placebo, and Brandie is successful at getting the Shipworks shut down. Elizabeth must close down her business when Brandie exposes the placebo program on the internet. Placebos only work if people believe they are real.

Jack goes home when he learns that his father, Lawrence, died. He has only spoken to him via Facebook since Jack left for Chicago many years prior. They argue frequently on Facebook because Lawrence advances conspiracy theories on his Facebook page. Jack learns that his father had lung cancer and that he was using alternative treatments to heal himself. He stopped trusting doctors when Jack was ill as a child because hospitals could not help Jack. Jack realizes that his father likely needed the hope the alternative treatments provided.

Jack goes home and realizes that he is pressuring Elizabeth and says he will sleep in the yet unfinished Shipworks to give her space. Elizabeth finds out from Benjamin that they have started the Shipworks on fire for insurance money, and she races to the building to get Jack who had already gotten out safely. Elizabeth realizes that for today and tomorrow she is in love with Jack, and she decides that this is enough for her.