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lilaceve's reviews
69 reviews
Grand Union by Zadie Smith
3.0
I really wanted to enjoy this book. I read Swing Time a while ago and didn’t enjoy most of it at all, but felt that Zadie Smith had the potential to write a book I really liked as the first 70 pages were really captivating for me. Unfortunately, this book was only marginally better for me by virtue of being a short story collection, in which I enjoyed some of the stories - none to any exceptional degree - but many I found tiresome and difficult to get through. I think some of the stories are trying too hard to be smart at the expense of not being fun or enjoyable or understandable or, frankly, particularly readable. I left many of the stories, and the book as a whole, wondering if I was missing something about her writing that made it so incredible. Zadie Smith is clearly on paper a strong writer, but having now read both Grand Union and Swing Time, I simply do not think she is the author for me.