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skepticcurmudgeon's review
4.0
Throw cultures together and mix, and you end up with a really tasty stew. The characters are interesting and portrayed very honestly with all their warts and short comings. Most of them are not easy characters to like, but they all have their moments. At times many of them are frustrating, but in a way I think is true of real people who often are trying to fit in even when their rough edges prevent it. Kiki was my favorite character followed by her daughter Zora. At times the book really made me laugh out loud, and at other moments I was close to tears. Looking forward to reading Zadie Smith's "White Teeth" soon.
h3rculepoirot's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
nicoleswiggard's review
4.0
(i h8 howard belsey and im sticking to that.)
zadie smith’s talent for character is genuinely astonishing. the voice, the psychology, mannerisms, reactions, they are all so well shaped across the numerous people we get to know throughout this book.
what makes people beautiful? what makes them ugly? why is it so often the same thing? passion, identity, love, knowledge, religion, belief. nothing is so simply binary for humanity. we’re complex and messy and glorious. hate us, love us.
it’s practically a handbook on writing morally grey characters. its unbearable and its incredible.
zadie is brilliant, i adore
——
“The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.”
“Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can stand by, tickets you can run on. Intelligent humans make those choices with their brain and hearts and they make them alone. The world does not deliver meaning to you. You have to make it meaningful...and decide what you want and need and must do. It’s a tough, unimaginably lonely and complicated way to be in the world. But that’s the deal: you have to live; you can’t live by slogans, dead ideas, clichés, or national flags. Finding an identity is easy. It’s the easy way out.”
(on siblings) “He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.”
“I am very selfish, really. I lived for love.”
“In a whisper he began begging for—and as the sun set, received—the concession people always beg for: a little more time.”
zadie smith’s talent for character is genuinely astonishing. the voice, the psychology, mannerisms, reactions, they are all so well shaped across the numerous people we get to know throughout this book.
what makes people beautiful? what makes them ugly? why is it so often the same thing? passion, identity, love, knowledge, religion, belief. nothing is so simply binary for humanity. we’re complex and messy and glorious. hate us, love us.
it’s practically a handbook on writing morally grey characters. its unbearable and its incredible.
zadie is brilliant, i adore
——
“The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.”
“Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can stand by, tickets you can run on. Intelligent humans make those choices with their brain and hearts and they make them alone. The world does not deliver meaning to you. You have to make it meaningful...and decide what you want and need and must do. It’s a tough, unimaginably lonely and complicated way to be in the world. But that’s the deal: you have to live; you can’t live by slogans, dead ideas, clichés, or national flags. Finding an identity is easy. It’s the easy way out.”
(on siblings) “He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.”
“I am very selfish, really. I lived for love.”
“In a whisper he began begging for—and as the sun set, received—the concession people always beg for: a little more time.”
samvanstokkom's review against another edition
4.0
EDIT: vind dit toch leuker dan ik in mn review laat lijken. heb er echt goede herinneringen aan en zou het best nog een keer willen lezen nu ik er aan terug denk
ik heb hier eigenlijk vrij weinig over te zeggen, ik vond het een goed boek, soms was ik echt invested, soms niet. maar over het algemeen wel heel fijn om te lezen ook al was het best dense. interessante personages, allemaal best likeable en realistisch. fijne schrijfstijl en vermakelijk verhaal!
ik heb hier eigenlijk vrij weinig over te zeggen, ik vond het een goed boek, soms was ik echt invested, soms niet. maar over het algemeen wel heel fijn om te lezen ook al was het best dense. interessante personages, allemaal best likeable en realistisch. fijne schrijfstijl en vermakelijk verhaal!
a_solemn_snail's review against another edition
What an awful book. Dry writing. Quarrelsome, detestable characters. Nothing of value.
jadestar's review
emotional
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
milouros's review against another edition
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.25
hanlue's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
abfazio's review
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
gigireadswithkiki's review
DNF-ing at 29%
HONESTLY the writing style is perfectly adequate there’s nothing blatantly wrong with the writing itself. But Z(S)adie Smith is so clearly fatphobic and a hater of Chinese people (for no reason? Perhaps a side effect of being British and simply having haterade injected into your system from such a young age) that I truly hope for her sake I never cross paths with her.
Both the Fatphobia and Sinophobia are so blatantly blunt & direct, which is such a SHARP contrast to the subtlety of Smith’s other critiques on Black racial dynamics and academic sociodynamics. Along comes a scathingly satirical paragraph espousing the stuffy egotism of academics, but by contrast the next paragraph will have “the round Chinese with the slanted diagonal eyes” or “her husband couldnt put his arms around her” or “her obsidian eyes struggled under the pressure of folded skin from above and below” or “you’re mistaken my mother is not glamorous, she’s too big for that”.
Truly such a bafflement to me how Smith has acquired such a cult following when contemporaries of her age have achieved similar accolades without smearing entire demographics of human society.
HONESTLY the writing style is perfectly adequate there’s nothing blatantly wrong with the writing itself. But Z(S)adie Smith is so clearly fatphobic and a hater of Chinese people (for no reason? Perhaps a side effect of being British and simply having haterade injected into your system from such a young age) that I truly hope for her sake I never cross paths with her.
Both the Fatphobia and Sinophobia are so blatantly blunt & direct, which is such a SHARP contrast to the subtlety of Smith’s other critiques on Black racial dynamics and academic sociodynamics. Along comes a scathingly satirical paragraph espousing the stuffy egotism of academics, but by contrast the next paragraph will have “the round Chinese with the slanted diagonal eyes” or “her husband couldnt put his arms around her” or “her obsidian eyes struggled under the pressure of folded skin from above and below” or “you’re mistaken my mother is not glamorous, she’s too big for that”.
Truly such a bafflement to me how Smith has acquired such a cult following when contemporaries of her age have achieved similar accolades without smearing entire demographics of human society.