On Beauty by Zadie Smith

On Beauty is a good social analysis with amusing, real characters, but it has too many flaws. The writing is bland and disinteresting: it rarely is funny or poetic. The basic story is promising, but it lacks imagination and the settings are predicable and unrealistic. This means there are fascinating, humane characters thrown into a story that drags for too long and seem disconnected. It definitely needed to be cut down in length and some supporting characters were only there as a trigger to action. Overall, Zadie Smith is able to satirize people very well but she's not a good story teller yet.