NW by Zadie Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars

I really enjoyed reading N-W. It was the first novel by Zadie Smith that I have read, but I assure you, it won’t be the last. However, while reading this book my opinion was influx. The easiest way to address this is to review each section.

Visitation (Part 1)

This section 1 out of 5 stars. I found the way this part was written hard to follow. Despite the dashes indicating when speech began, I was still confused as some speech ran into Leah’s stream of consciousness. I wasn’t really concentrating on the writing or the plot or Leah, I was just trying to figure out what was being said.

I suppose this focus on Leah was disappointing, I found her story to be not as interesting as others in the book. I also found Leah to be a little whiney, which annoyed me.

Guest

I really enjoyed this section. I would’ve given it 5/5. I found Felix to be a very interesting character, and I thought that the side characters were particularly well fleshed out. Felix’s section was easier to read and it really brought out the grittiness of London, with characters such as Lloyd, Annie, and what happens to Felix at the end.

Host

I loved how this section was written, again, I would’ve given it five out of five. The idea in this part of the novel is that the reader is Natalie’s ‘host’ and we see key events in her life unfurl. I found this to be a very interesting idea and I loved how it was executed. It certainly gave us a flavour of Natalie’s life and I thought the events that happened in this section were very engaging. I also preferred Natalie greatly to Leah, and I found her character to be a fascinating one.

Crossing

Three out of five. While I enjoyed the premise, and I liked how Natalie and Nathan were on a journey during this conversation, I disliked the writing. This is partly because I love speech marks. I really do. Speech mark less, I get terribly confused. I also thought Nathan’s character was a bit of a shame. Rather than having his own part like Felix or Leah, he was merely a plot point for Natalie.

Visitation (Part 2)

Two out of five. I was mostly confused by the necessity of this part. I would’ve been happy if Zadie Smith had left it at Crossing. Nothing really happened in this section and there was no sense of a conclusion to the story, it just ended. There wasn’t a cliff-hanger either. I got the sense that N-W was simply a snippet of people’s lives, but even then I did want some sense of an ending.


What else I liked about the book: Despite me not being a Londoner, I thought Smith captured London excellently. I really enjoyed reading about the multi-cultural society and I thought Smith did a great job portraying it.


View all my reviews