If all the essays were like it, I would perhaps be able to give this four stars. I bumped my rating up to two stars instead of one because of it. There's only one essay I appreciate, 'Contempt as a Virus'. Probably I still wouldn't have liked this. Perhaps I would have liked it more had I not just read someone so profoundly moving and intellectual as Ms. I read the last word, made a cup of tea, and began this book. To be fair, I started reading this immediately after finishing Claudia Rankine's Just Us: An American Conversation. Instead, it reads like a bunch of diary entries, and not the kind of deep, reflective diary entries I might find interesting. I thought this was going to be a book about the pandemic but it's not. I equally don't give a shit about hearing how you grab a macchiato when you have two minutes to spare. I don't give a shit about your neighbour's dog and I don't give a shit about how you and your masseuse chat about holidays.

Unfortunately this book is the equivalent of small talk. I don't have energy to be around people a lot and so when I am, I want to use that energy to have deep and meaningful conversations. I hate parties where everyone has to stand around gibbering nonsense. I thought a book of essays about the pandemic would be something everyone can relate to, and I'd get a taste of Ms. When I saw Intimations, I decided it was time to remedy that. Zadie Smith's books have come across my radar many times but I'd never read one. Did I read the same book as everyone else? Because I totally don't get all the four and five star reviews I'm seeing.

Intimations by Zadie Smith