The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

“The trivia, the reading, the book clubs…they were simply weapons of self-defense.”

In the novel’s early chapters, Nina is established as a person who tries to handle her anxiety and active imagination by distracting herself with frequent social activities. As the discovery of her family prompts new inner growth, she will learn to abandon these strategies and embrace a more meaningful way of relating to the people around her, there by illustrating the theme of Embracing Change and Broadening Social Connections.

“Are you following all this? Then she would breakfast on fresh fruit and whole grains and yogurt […] She would be grateful and mindful and not in any way blemished.”

In another example of authorial/audience collusion, the narrator brings the reader in on a gentle joke at Nina’s expense about her ambitions for self-improvement. The life that Nina imagines for herself is more wholesome than the one she actually leads, and the humor in this situation is amplified by the notes she makes in the occasional graphics that represent her planner for the day.

“Now, as an adult, she’d come to the conclusion that her mother being away all the time had probably been a blessing. Her nanny, Louise, had been a wonderful mother, and her mother had been a wonderful photographer. Biology is not destiny, and love is not proportionate to shared DNA.”

Nina’s reflections upon first learning of her father’s identity and recent death represents both foreshadowing and a bit of irony, as she will turn out to have many connections with her blood relatives. This passage also introduces the theme of Family Bonds and Inheritance, for the protagonist feels compelled to question the influence of shared genetics versus her upbringing.

“Nina had been an anxious kid, and had frequently needed to sit on the floor and dream about possibilities outside her daily experience.”

This passage again establishes Nina’s method of withdrawing from social contact to cope with her anxiety, which persists as a key feature of her character. These lines also speak to the novel’s themes about the rewards of Fiction as a Refuge and a Guide.

“The breakthrough was always imminent; there was always something about to happen. In the dim interstices between flashes of hope you make your life.”

This reflection on Polly’s success as an actor exemplifies the occasional cultural commentary that the author inserts into the broader narrative. The passage also foreshadows the fact that Nina is destined to experience several significant breakthroughs regarding the nature of meaningful social connections, and her constant quest to structure and improve her life becomes a key part of the novel as a whole.

“You know, as a kid I felt alone a lot, but I also really liked being alone so, you know, it was fine. I spent a lot of time reading and lying on the living room rug watching TV.”

As Nina gets to know her family, she realizes that she had a lonely childhood by comparison, and the realization increases the sense of loneliness she feels in her adult life as well. This shift in perception compels her to seek new connections, highlighting the novel’s larger themes about the value of building meaningful social relationships.

“You might not have felt this way about him, but Nina had a rich imagination to compensate for her lack of spending money.”

After relaying an image in which Nina compares the visiting author at the bookstore to a praying mantis, the narrator intrudes with this observation, which represents yet another example of a direct address to the reader that establishes collusion and sympathy with Nina. However, the narrator has abandoned the metafictional device of regarding Nina as a fictional character, and this shift allows readers to become more fully immersed in the world of the novel.

“Her anxiety had gotten better in the last several years, once she’d started to use a planner and keep a schedule and basically try to control every aspect of her life, but it was always curled up at the base of her spine like a sleeping cat.”

This passage offers a powerful image that captures Nina’s ever-present anxiety, which is part of what makes her a rounded character. The attempt to control her life with a schedule leads to conflict for Nina when it prohibits her from pursuing healthy relationships or trying new things. This tendency is highlighted at several points in the novel, such as when she uses her self-imposed schedule as an excuse to refuse invitations to socialize with others.

“You know, you can’t always be ready. Life tends toward chaos, sadly. […] It’s all very well to have a plan—it’s a good idea—but you have to be able to walk away from it if you need to.”

Lili, the mother of one of the book club girls, acts as a mentor and as a foil to Nina. In this passage, she reminds Nina of the necessity to maintain resilience and adaptability and find productive ways to handle her anxiety without becoming resistant to change. Because Lili has lost her husband, her words reflect her own forlorn awareness that the “chaos” of life can overwhelm even the most arduous of planners.

“[Nina’s] Room 101, for those Orwell fans among you, would simply contain a couple of people whose names she couldn’t remember.”

The reference to George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 is one of Waxman’s many allusions. This one is designed to emphasize Nina’s fixation on fictional worlds even as it demonstrates the extent of her reading. In 1984, Room 101 is a torture chamber that focuses on a prisoner’s worst fears, and for Nina, her worst fear involves her social anxiety.

“How many people do we encounter every day who might be related to us, or simply people who might have become the best friends we ever had, or our second spouses, or the agents of our destruction, if we only spent more than seconds with them?”

This momentary detour belongs to Archie, but it is also characteristic of the narrative style and voice that dominates the novel, particularly the humor of juxtaposing the images of spouses and “agents of destruction.” By philosophizing about the ways in which connections and relationships form, this passage illustrates the novel’s larger themes regarding honoring personal bonds and building family connections.

“I’m not sure that simple biology makes someone a father, though. Don’t you have to do some actual fathering?”

In this passage, Nina questions the impact that William Reynolds can be expected to have on her, since she never knew him. While her question holds merit, she will also discover that the definition of family is individual to each person, and that she herself will become more willing to accept the idea of becoming a part of a family that she never knew.

“I’m easily thrown; I guess you could put it like that. I feel like I don’t have a deep well of calm. I feel like I was lightly misted with calm, and it doesn’t take a lot for it to evaporate.”

In this passage, Nina uses water-based imagery to describe her anxiety in a way that Tom can understand. The contrast between a deep well and being lightly misted is both humorous and highly descriptive. The metaphor of a “deep well of calm” also implies its opposite: tumultuous waves on stormy seas of anxiety.

“Nina looked at her planner as if seeing it for the first time. It was big and heavily accessorized. It had bookmarks sticking out at various points; it had ribbons and tabs; it had a pocket full of special, planner-sized equipment.”

The planner symbolizes Nina’s desire to control her life and limit her discomfort, thus preventing her anxiety from overwhelming her. When she sees her planner through Tom’s eyes, these details she notices suggest that she has over-invested in her schedule to the point of limiting all spontaneity in her life. Additionally, the very concept of “special, planner-sized equipment” implies a measure of excess in Nina’s planning activities.

“[Nina] had always been a bookworm. There was a picture hanging on her bathroom wall that showed her lying on a rug somewhere, fast asleep, surrounded by books.”

This visual image suggests that Nina books provide a literal and metaphorical haven for Nina; just as she surrounds herself with books at home and at work, she also finds refuge in the landscapes of imagination that they provide. As she navigates the complex dynamics of her new family, Nina reflects often on her isolated upbringing and comes to better understand herself and her character traits. This passage speaks to the theme of Fiction as a Refuge and a Guide, suggesting that this coping mechanism can begin at an early age.

“Coming out of a book was always painful. She was surprised to see things had remained in place while she herself had been roaming other towns, other times.”

Waxman captures the feeling of being so completely immersed in a book that returning to the mundane world can cause an acute dissonance. This passage emphasizes Nina’s status as a “legend in her own mind,” and there is also a subtle irony in the fact that Nina freely travels through the imaginative realms of books but has never traveled and explored the “real world.”

“Nina arranged her features in a friendly expression, getting ready to be introduced to strangers. For some reason, she wasn’t feeling as anxious about it as usual.”

The expression “arranged her features” implies that wearing a specific expression is a conscious, mechanical act for Nina, and this indicates a strong degree of social masking. Extraordinarily self-conscious in unfamiliar social situations, Nina finds herself falling back on established routines to get by. However, in this passage, it is clear that her inner anxiety has lessened considerably, and a significant breakthrough occurs at the wedding, when she becomes more relaxed and open to meeting new people. This shift helps her to connect with Tom, and the author indulges in describing a romantic interlude as their relationship develops.

“She was so touchy, this one. Hard to navigate, although in bed they were so easy together, so relaxed and in tune. It was only the afterglow that held land mines.”

In this passage, the author strategically shifts the narrative perspective to Tom’s point of view in order to highlight issues that Nina is not entirely aware of. This insight into Nina from Tom’s eyes also provides deeper insights into Tom’s character as well as Nina’s, suggesting that although the two have considerable chemistry, there is still a wealth of unspoken snags to work through.

“[Nina] wished she didn’t feel so much identification with Millie, though; it was giving her flashbacks to her own school years. Recess and lunch, finding a spot to be alone, and then half wishing someone would find you.”

One of the novel’s running jokes is that Nina’s new family is unconventional in age, but this does not prevent Nina from building meaningful new connections with them. For example, her 10-year-old sister Millie reminds Nina of her younger self. As she finds creative ways to relate to Millie, she develops considerably by forming new relationships and outgrowing the small boundaries she has set for herself. This passage also suggests that Nina feel ambivalent about her stated preference for solitude.

“Her anxiety lurked inside like a parasite that occasionally threatened to kill its host; sometimes she could hear it breathing.”

In this passage, the author employs vivid figurative language to personify Nina’s anxiety as a debilitating internal parasite and a predator lying in ambush. Whenever she feels threatened, the imagery of the narrative shifts to employ threatening similes, such as this comparison of her anxiety to a parasite eager to kill its host. This passage provides an example of Waxman’s honed prose and style, which is designed to balance her precision and wit.

“[Nina] thought of her own shelves, and what the titles might tell someone about her, realizing that she now knew more about her late father than she might ever have known, even if she’d met him.”

As Nina works to forge new family bonds, she experiences a moment of implicit kinship with her father when she realizes that they have read the same books and have therefore shared the same thoughts and internal experiences. This moment proves more effective than any other at allowing her to create a sense of intangible connection to the father she never knew. As a book lover herself, it is only fitting that she finds this connection when faced with her father’s bookshelves, for his reading choices provide unique insights into the concepts that most fascinated him in life.

“Mystery readers were everywhere, voracious, highly partisan, and passionate. They were among the store’s best customers, and unfailingly polite. In private they embraced a bloodthirsty desire for vengeance and the use of arcane poisons and sneaky sleuthing, but in public they were charming and generous. Romance readers tended to be fun and have strong opinions. Nonfiction readers asked a lot of questions and were easily amused. It was the serious novel folks and poetry fans you had to watch out for.”

This commentary on the different types of readers is designed to appeal to an audience of vast readers who also hold innumerable strong opinions about their reading choices. Thus, the author invokes a common human experience to create a sense of kinship between reader and protagonist. Additionally, the passage also reveals Nina’s systematic way of using literature to impose a sense of order on the chaos of social behavior. In yet another example of how completely stories define Nina’s world, she is shown to actively classify people by the books they read. In this example, the narrator’s voice and Nina’s voice seem to merge.

“You might be shy, you might be introverted, even, but you like people.”

Lydia’s assessment of Nina captures a key element of her character arc and advances Nina’s own understanding of herself. Nina may be wary of people, but she is still fascinated by them and uses her fixation on literature to study human behavior from a safe distance. When faced with the need to get to know the Reynolds family, she puts this analytical knowledge to good use and works to create meaningful, real-life relationships with new people.