Rating: 
Summary: I Don't Have The Time
Review: I don't have the time to list all of the factual inaccuracies in this book.
It is terribly distracting to read the best written prose or watch the best told film that have been poorly researched.
The next time this author decides to write, homework needs to be done, and better editors need to be selected.
Sorry, but we are not all that ill informed, naive or, stupid. I spent a year in Jamaica and traveled extensively throughout India on numerous trips.
Please have some respect for your readers intelligence.
Rating:
Summary: literary onanism
Review: man, this thing is so self-absorbed and mediocre. what am i missing here? why am i not jumping on the bandwagon with all the other five star reviewers. this book is pretentious, overly self-conscious, (insert disparaging commment here), and downright bad. hey, i just pulled a zadie smith, ain't i clever?
Rating: 
Summary: Thoroughly enjoyable
Review: fun, hysterical, allusionary, sardonic, perceptive, exaggerated yet realistic... all around worthwhile
Rating: 
Summary: Inspired, Erratic, Promising, Clunky First Effort
Review: White Teeth is an exploration of race, genetics, belief and family set mostly in the eighties and early nineties with flashback to WWII and the seventies.Zadie Smith has a pungent, comic style that is readable but not moving. I was intrigued by Millat, Samad and Joyce but didn't really care about them. The book displays deep knowledge of race and of being nonwhite in England but I found its forays into "science" murky and unconvincing. As a whole, the book fails to provide a convincing narrative or to develop its characters. Archie, whose attempted suicide opens the book, is sadly neglected. However, there are some wonderful moments such as Archie's discovery of his future wife, Samad's struggle with lust and Joyce Chalfen's obession with Millat. I can't recommend the book but I wouldn't be surprised if the author improves with age and ends up writing a book I heartily recommend.
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic! Buy It Now!
Review: WHITE TEETH often feels like a kaleidoscopic journey: the swirl of events can be dizzying, but it's a fun ride. The lives of the Jones and Iqbal families become vivid and moving. The genius of this book is the depiction of real lives in a complex society, and Smith makes her understanding of the nature of those lives apparent. In its boisterous energy, brilliant language and expansive heart, it serves fair notice that Zadie Smith is a novelist of seemingly endless promise. Also recommended: THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez
Rating:
Summary: A Big Feast of a Book
Review: A big, rich novel, touching on friendships, marriage, teenage angst, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims and love. Very well written with much humor. The unlikely friendship between Archie Jones, a red-headed Englishman, and Samad Iqbal, a Bengali Muslim, is followed, along with the lives of their families. Shows how family problems are universal. Characters are well-shaped. Zadie Smith is an expert at the characterization of teenagers - she nails them. This is a wonderful, wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: Well Worth Reading - By D. Walter
Review: Zadie Smith's White Teeth was a pleasure to read, yet the novel left something to be desired - especially the inadequate resolution. Smith's impeccable wit is apparent from the first page of the novel, transforming what would normally be a grim attempted suicide into a comical, ill-fated endeavor. It is in such a manner that Smith brings up numerous thought provoking issues ranging from race, to war, to religion, her clever style making such topics seem so extraneous to real life while at the same time subtly disclosing the fact that understanding them and coping with them is essential. Smith's character development is superb, intertwining the tales of two very different families - the Jones and the Iqbals - and delving into the diverse histories of each character: Archie's failed marriage and attempted suicide, Samad's inability to find satisfaction in his wife, and the two fathers' wartime partnership, due to convenience rather than chemistry. Then there's Clara's rejection of her mother's religion and way of life, and her short-lived fling with an otherwise unwanted schoolboy; Alsana's hatred of India; Magid, Millat, and Irie's linked fates; countless histories which all coincide brilliantly under Smith's writing. While there is certainly a wealth of well-rounded characters for Smith to play with, she spends too much time with flatter characters who clutter the story. Smith waits until the middle of the novel to introduce the Chalfens, a family of characters who bear a great deal of importance to the text. However, their link to anything preceding their entrance is weak, and the change in focus is too abrupt, bringing the pace of the novel to a sudden halt. It takes Smith some time to rebuild confidence in the novel, at which point it picks back up. Unfortunately, the end of the book arrives very quickly at such an instance, and after Smith had put a lot of work into building suspense, the climax was painfully unsatisfying and left me unhappy. Essentially, Smith's problem is her inconsistent writing quality. There is so much excellent writing to be found in this book, but Smith fails to maintain her exceptional prose evenly throughout. As a result, it was difficult to enjoy White Teeth as I would have liked. Smith pulls this off while moving the novel along at an extremely brisk pace - but this unfortunately works against her at some points. Taking the focus away from flatter characters coupled with a more satisfying resolution would have earned this book a higher score, but Smith's wit combined with the way in which she introduces and explores important issues makes White Teeth well worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: White Teeth review by Hilary Parkin
Review: There was a lot of hype over this novel written by the young Zadie Smith, but I couldn't quite grasp why. I couldn't relate to the fantastic reviews it received, and felt somewhat disappointed when reading it.
Being a teenager, primarily interested in sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, I was bored by the novel beginning with two old men discussing their memories of war. I felt as if I had chosen the wrong summer reading, and that I would rather start another book than listen to long stories of no interest to me. But as I read on, characters of a younger generation were introduced as were issues of race, gender, religion and sexual preference, and I felt much more at ease.
I became much more interested as diverse sets of ages and ethnicities appeared and found myself wondering how Smith could write a novel of so much history and experience. I began to picture Zadie Smith as Irie, a troubled teenager searching for her roots and also for recognition.
A few months ago, I heard Smith read, along with Dave Eggers, the author of critically acclaimed A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius. I found Smith to be much like Irie, to have her same mannerisms and same speech.
This explains how Smith knows so much about there characters and their lives. She was born the year the book begins and has lived through, I am sure, the majority of this book. She has seen the assimilation of younger generations and the vast diversity of race, religion and age being introduced over the past 25 years.
This also explains her fantastic grasp of families such as the Jones' or the Iqbals. She introduces many social and cultural aspects to family life in London from 1975 on. She presents the reader with everyday conflicts, which interested me far more than petty war talk. The Bengali Muslim, Samad, attempting to overcome his sexual desires. Or his two twin sons, one supporting science, and the other, his religion. All of the characters are defending some part of themselves, whether it be their roots or their lifestyle. But each character is so alive and real in their struggle.
I really did enjoy the majority of the book, and Smith is quite a talented author, but the story and dialogue fell flat a lot of the time. At some points, when tensions were high and there was a conflict of some sort, I couldn't put the book down. But at other times, the novel was slow moving and uneventful. I was really looking for some consistency in the writing to keep me going, or at least a solid plot line that would push me to the end. Yet, as the story came to an end, so did my interest in it. The author seemed exhausted by the story, as was I.
Rating:
Summary: Lack of focus
Review: The first 200 pages or so of this novel contain the most profound and wittiest prose I've come across. Unfortunately, the second half drags the overall novel down by a few notches.
The novel starts off by introducing us to two helpless and unlucky souls who became friends during WWII. It was funny and enjoyable to learn how these two war buddies, Archie and Samad, cope with their lives, jobs, wives, and children. Then the second half begins by switching focus to their children and the children's mentor, a family named the Chalfens. Because little was mentioned about the children and the Chalfens family in the first half, it was very jarring to see the sudden focus on them. To make matters worse, the children and the Chalfens were painted in such a bad light that I really don't care who lives or swims at the end. The passages involving the elderly Hortense (Archie's mother-in-law) and the scientific treatise on genetic engineering fail to interest me at all. Too much insignificant details were thrown in that do not leave me wanting more. I got the feeling that the author wanted more to preach her own beliefs on science rather than to create a more coherent and tightly focused story.
Rating:
Summary: A boring tale with too much going on
Review: Yes, I understand that seems like a contradiction, but it was the exact feeling I had when reading this book. Tehre were so many stories and subplots and new plots getting introduced near the completion of the book. Suffice it to say I was greatly dissapointed with this read. To give a summary, I am not even sure where to start. It actually did start out pretty strong. With tales of an old friends and their distinctions, I thought it would at least be a well thought out book about friendship. About a quarter of the way through, things take a turn for the worse and never really get back to the zealous and picturesque story telling that occured in the beginning. By time I was about 2/3 of the way away from completion, I couldn't wait to put it down. Because I always finish books, I stuck it out, but believe me it was a chore. There were a few moments of clarity where I thought things from the end would somehow tie into things for the beginning, but really that never happened. I mean in the end we find the entire basis of the book, the only redeeming quality of life long friendship, was a fallacy in the first place, and instead of expanding on this- even a little bit, the author just ends the book. I mean really, what was the point?
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