jmiae's review against another edition
3.0
Zadie Smith's unusual and engaging prose was the only thing that carried me through this. The Autograph Man feels largely skeletal, more a collection of bullet pointed plot twists that never quite connect to each other than a cohesive narrative. I never quite knew where she was going with the story until suddenly I found myself in the middle of an event. Although the main thrust of the story is apparently Alex-Li's existential crisis as an autograph man, there is a plethora of other conflicts that are only briefly touched upon or, in some cases, merely hinted at, but never get fully resolved. The result was a rather unsatisfying read.
Bottom line: if you have never read anything by Zadie Smith before, don't start with this one. Whilst it is a great showcase of her abilities to write beautiful sentences and build intriguing syntax structures, the complex web of characters and conflicts introduced are only flimsily held together.
Bottom line: if you have never read anything by Zadie Smith before, don't start with this one. Whilst it is a great showcase of her abilities to write beautiful sentences and build intriguing syntax structures, the complex web of characters and conflicts introduced are only flimsily held together.
jendella's review against another edition
3.0
First of all: this book is much too long and it has a weird white-man-colonial-anthropological tone that I tried view as “ironic” but as the book went on, it became clearer to me that it wasn’t?? But yeah, if you can stick with the excessively long first third and then get past reading descriptions such as someone being “blue-black” in skin tone or having “hair like an Indian”... on a craft level, there are few that can match Zadie. I’m sorry but it’s true (in my opinion ofc). Even with all its problems (I’ve not even mentioned the Jewish thing yet) I kept reading. At first it was to see where exactly the tone/approach was going, and then because I’m just a fan of Zadie’s writing and there was enough of wit, curious characters and interesting turns to keep me involved.
bibliobethreads's review against another edition
Hmm, not that impressed with this one... too disjointed and not interesting enough to hold my attention I'm afraid, will give her other books a go though.
bryanfarmer's review against another edition
4.0
Zadie Smith is and will always be my favorite author. I loved The Autograph Man, but it honestly felt like two separate books to me. The second half was way more interesting.
hannahsonia's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
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? Yes
5.0
nin_wi's review against another edition
2.0
I am a huge fan of ZS, but it's hard to love a book when you keep dreaming of smacking the main character in the face. What are Alex-Li's redeeming qualities? I'm not sure.
robyn1998's review against another edition
2.0
There were a couple of moments when I actually enjoyed this book... most of the time I was just waiting to finish it. Very boring, too much discussion of International Gestures. I thought Esther should just have dumped Alex.
dapho's review against another edition
4.0
A good book for young people who are nostalgic for childhood but obsessed with Instagram. More seriously, Zadie Smith stirs up so many questions on communication and emoting with few answers, but gives a worthwhile ride.