Scan barcode
A review by ogbergerking
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
3.5
this book… where do i begin.
truthfully, this book is somewhere between a 3 & 4 star rating for me… so a 3.5 should suffice, though even that feels wrong.
white teeth is dense. it’s interconnected in a way that only deep history can be. as an american, i do have to admit that there was something inherently british behind the actual storyline that i couldn’t fully connect to.
reading this felt like i was watching euphoria for the first time. every character was connected in more ways than imagined, & the main character was nothing more than a spring board for the surrounding stories of the rest of the cast. archie jones seems so inconsequential & on the way side, that the ending (WHICH I FULLY PREDICTED) still caught me by surprise. & yet, the foreseen ending left me a bit unsatisfied despite it all, wanting to know more of how the characters progressed after everything came crashing down, rather than feeling more like a rushed 3 paragraphs.
so much happened in this story that it was almost too much. everything was so fleshed out & so much was pumped in, yet the story had to be read in chunks & fully chewed & digested because there was too much detail that prevented the story plot from moving forward. it gave the book a bit of a disjointed timeline, feeling chaotic & leaving me stumbling through, with some parts feeling as pleasant to read as pulling teeth.
for a debut novel, i found myself shocked at how smith tied her deeply complex yet simultaneously fully two dimensional characters together, like a patchwork quilt of old yarn scraps. or, perhaps she prefer i parallel it to that of an orthodontist forcing crowded teeth into a smooth, white symmetry, where they don’t belong and the ache of which runs to the roots.
i would recommend, & would likely read again, just for the chance to digest it all fully & properly.
truthfully, this book is somewhere between a 3 & 4 star rating for me… so a 3.5 should suffice, though even that feels wrong.
white teeth is dense. it’s interconnected in a way that only deep history can be. as an american, i do have to admit that there was something inherently british behind the actual storyline that i couldn’t fully connect to.
reading this felt like i was watching euphoria for the first time. every character was connected in more ways than imagined, & the main character was nothing more than a spring board for the surrounding stories of the rest of the cast. archie jones seems so inconsequential & on the way side, that the ending (WHICH I FULLY PREDICTED) still caught me by surprise. & yet, the foreseen ending left me a bit unsatisfied despite it all, wanting to know more of how the characters progressed after everything came crashing down, rather than feeling more like a rushed 3 paragraphs.
so much happened in this story that it was almost too much. everything was so fleshed out & so much was pumped in, yet the story had to be read in chunks & fully chewed & digested because there was too much detail that prevented the story plot from moving forward. it gave the book a bit of a disjointed timeline, feeling chaotic & leaving me stumbling through, with some parts feeling as pleasant to read as pulling teeth.
for a debut novel, i found myself shocked at how smith tied her deeply complex yet simultaneously fully two dimensional characters together, like a patchwork quilt of old yarn scraps. or, perhaps she prefer i parallel it to that of an orthodontist forcing crowded teeth into a smooth, white symmetry, where they don’t belong and the ache of which runs to the roots.
i would recommend, & would likely read again, just for the chance to digest it all fully & properly.