Feel Free Review

Zadie Smith does it again. I have now read most of everything Smith has written, and I’ve enjoyed everything, but this book is in my top tier of Zadie reads. I read Grand Union recently, and I do not think the short story is Smith’s element, but her essays are all brilliant. Her essay on the links between writing and dance caught my attention, especially. Possibly because I have been a life-long fan of both reading and dancing/watching dance, but Smith makes the intricacies of the dance world accessible to those not glued to dance performances. I’d like equally insightful essays on figure skating now, please (ice dance, in particular). Someone write this and send it to me.

My qualm is that I think this book is too long. At almost five hundred pages, I had a hard time keeping my attention focused, so overall it took me longer to get through than usual. This could have been two separate books, especially because the first half is so different from the second. Feel Free is still all worth it though.

I was serious about the figure skating thing.