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ilybinaya's review against another edition
3.0
first zadie smith, love the language. the essays were very nice and personal, but held some substantial themes: the arts, writing, leisure time to fill during lockdown… but the stories felt very flat and unfocused in comparison to the essays.
sineadw9's review against another edition
reflective
fast-paced
Short and sweet series of barely-even-essays that capture the first ~6 months of COVID. It’s a little eerie reading about such an in-the-moment experience of the pandemic, especially when as the reader, we know how many things Smith mentions play out. She captures the uncertainty, perspective shift, and introspection of that point in time so well, and the final essay that pivots to an intimation on race in America is a devastating but grounding end.
These essays were quiet but profound. Their issues were rarely large in scale but I felt they were quite piercing either way. In some ways, this book is like reading someone’s journal entries from March - June 2020, but lucky for us that person is Zadie Smith and she’s immensely readable.
These essays were quiet but profound. Their issues were rarely large in scale but I felt they were quite piercing either way. In some ways, this book is like reading someone’s journal entries from March - June 2020, but lucky for us that person is Zadie Smith and she’s immensely readable.
jacqueline_chyphenm's review against another edition
2.75
not sure why I did not DNF after reading Smiths deeply disappointing and harmful 2024 New Yorker essay. curiosity and clinging on to hope probably. well…it did disappoint. Apart from postscript and debts & lessons, I found myself lost in philosophical queries and self-deprecating narration (and perhaps just soured from reading the aforementioned essay—it feels particularly perverse for her to have written that post-script and then proceed to two-side the genocide of Palestinians). As much as I had wanted to, I won’t be picking up any more of Smith’s texts.
auntiedd's review against another edition
5.0
when she’s like “i don’t think writing is creative. writing is about controlling experience. planting tulips is creative” I FELT THAT LMAO. this is a perfect work of writing and if you experienced the months of march and april 2020 you gotta read this
j___sayer's review against another edition
3.0
Chapter on privilege vs suffering as well as other insights throughout