On Beauty was not an easy book to 'get into'. It only really grabbed me beyond midbook, but it tickled my curiosity nonetheless. Although the story itself left me with a not-so-pleasant aftertaste, I have to praise Zadie Smith's talent as it shone through the pages, the incidents and the characters. It was long, at times it left me wondering why there was so much extra information that was not so essential to the story, but I reached the conclusion that this is Zadie Smith's style, she narrates as if she is watching the scenes unfold, and she gives utmost importance to the psyche of her characters. On beauty is a book about families, ideologies, race, social classes, adulthood, marriage, loneliness, betrayal, the American dream... to be able to put all of these parameters in a cohesive story is worthy of a prize indeed! The characters flow through the story and we glimpse their interactions, the chemistry, the author never revealling her personal preferences but rather, letting the arguments debate among themselves. We glimpse a 30-year old iter-racial marriage scarred with betrayal, a fight to the end between liberalism and conservatism. The paradox of children wanting to pursue their vocation irrespective of their parents' beliefs, the clash between a comfortable middle-class family and those 'on the street'. It's an ocean of pivotal arguments brought to us in a narrative fashion. We witness the pros, the cons, the trivial, the essential, all intertwined, all very very insightful.