The average user rating for this Book is 7.3 out of 10 (based on 17 Votes).
Marie A gave it a9: I loved being in Zadie Smith's Wellington world for most of this novel. Slow start, but once the characters' somewhat separate stories connected together this was a quite enjoyable, if not a modern E.M. Forrester-like read.
Tommy A gave it a1: What a piece of convoluted faux-intellectual garbage. Word, yo, as her stupid characters would say.
Rosie R gave it a5: Competent and quite engrossing, but ultimately disappointing. This is a book to read for its plot; there is little of interest here in form or style.
Helen S gave it a6: A page turning read especially for an avid Forster fan but disappointing in the final analysis. Characterisation is amusing but the overall thematic significance of Howards End is unattainable. It steals from Forster and gives back a ragged, distorted shadow of his great work. Smith does not deserve to call herself a fan of the greatest novelist of all time.
William D gave it an8: A mixed bag. I thought the satire wasn't sharp enough and the male characters more one dimensional than "White Teeth" Still, this is carping...her talent and intellect are fairly stunning
Michael K gave it a10: I love all of her books including the brilliant and underrated Autograph Man. White Teeth is a comic novel about working class Londoners; On Beauty is a satire of cultural politics set in an academic community not unlike Cambridge, MA. White Teeth is about the cultural interaction of Bengali, Arabic, black, and white Londoners; On Beauty explores issues of social class as represented by the Kipps and Belsey familiies, but also by Carl Thomas and Choo, both of Roxbury. First-time novelist Stephen L. Carter received a 2-book deal worth $2.2 million for his Emperor of Ocean Park, a thriller-like novel set in an essentially conservative segment of the upper-class black academic world. On Beauty goes much deeper than that and satirizes both sides. In White Teeth, when Joyce Chalfen tells Clara Bowden that it's the "responsibility of intellectuals" to educate children like Irie Jones, it echoes the outdated historical idea of the "White Man's Burden," however, that's not what's happening in On Beauty. And finally, I think it's funny that E.M. Forster's Wilcoxes show up here as owners of a chain of preppy clothing stores!
Dan B. gave it a9: Everytime I read a book by her I want to marry her.
Greg M gave it an8: My beef is with the ending. In Kiki, Smith gives us a strong leading black female character who we love, admire, and believe in, and then, after a ridiculous inexcusable betrayal by her husband, Kiki shows up at his lecture (sorry, spoiler) and completely destroys herself. Human nature, maybe. But my disappointment was profound.
Tonya J gave it a5: On Beauty had little of the brilliance of White Teeth, and seemed much more contrived. I loved Zadie Smith's first novel; it was refreshing, witty, and showed the dynamic between unlikely pairings, such as a Jamaican mother and a white liberal mother, and a mixed girl and a white, middle-class scientist. However, the relationships in On Beauty are much more conventional and predictable: a seasoned professor and his Trinidadian student, a sassy college girl and her brother. And while one of White Teeth's main cornerstones was the exploration of the feelings between people of different races and how their manner reveals what they really are thinking (consider Ms. Chalfen's snub to Clara), much of On Beauty is about "intellectualism" and its importance to some people.
ground fisher gave it a6: Zadie Smith's books are lively, but the constant jabs at humour and the relentless explaining of everything leaves me feeling as if I've been stuck in a lively nail salon listening to so much mindless chatter. Sure, the book isn't mindless, and with her publisher's advertising and publicity budget, it's trendy to like her books, but I find them empty and crammed with so many wasted words. On beauty is uneven, but it has its moments. The hype surrounding Zadie Smith is as staggering as the advance she receieved for White Teeth, which perhaps explains it. I'll certainly reserve my judgement on Zadie Smith for another 15 years or so. There will surely be better books to come.
Roar gave it a10: This book has such cultural richness. Read it slowly. You'll be sad when it's over. Though the first half is quite alot of setting things up, the second half is about as good as literature gets.
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