On the more positive side, I liked how the author explored the ways rich people throw money at causes with little thought to if and how it helps.

Maybe it was because we were never encouraged to warm to her that the novel felt so aloof and intellectual - delivering its interesting concepts without any pull or life to them. The unnamed narrator seemed like an interesting technique at first, but it made for a very distant, impersonal narrative. There's a real lack of focus throughout the book and I spent a lot of it feeling like I was drifting around aimlessly. The story promised by the blurb - of two young brown girls who want to be dancers - makes up the first part of the book and is interesting, but the story quickly moves away from there and gets lost. Tracey is by far the more interesting character, which makes the Aimee chapters noticeably boring and hard to get through. Swing Time constantly jumps between different times and places, making it honestly quite difficult to stay invested in any of the wandering roads it takes. Both authors throw in some perfect characterization and wonderfully-written scenes, but the two lengthy books each left me feeling like 'is that it?' The other one being The Nix, which I actually enjoyed more. This is the second 'literary' work I've read recently that felt like a series of disconnected but beautifully-written pieces, all floating around without direction or focus. Swing Time skims the surface of these topics but, for me, it doesn't do anything truly memorable with any of them.

She brings themes of race, gender, colonialism, capitalism, celebrity culture, and dance theory and mixes them all together, touching on each in turn but leaving all of them a little flat. But oh my, does she waffle on about everything. Her social commentary is witty and insightful, her detailed and complex characters drive her work, her little observations about human nature ring true. Smith is, in some ways, a fantastic writer. I saw a comment somewhere that summarized my feelings on Smith's novels: she should write less, say more. This is my second Zadie Smith book and I find myself disappointed once again.

Swing time smith