Metacritic Books

Snobs
by Julian Fellowes

ISBN: 0312336926
St. Martin's Press, 272 pages, $23.95
Fiction General Literature & Fiction
Released 02/01/2005

This debut novel for the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "Gosford Park," like that movie, is a comedy of manners, with the action here taking place in contemporary London.

Overall Metascore

This is an average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

72 / 100

Critic Reviews

Outstanding Kirkus Reviews
A wonderful commonplace book of wit and wisdom on snobs and aspiring snobs--there are no former snobs--disguised as a novel that's perhaps both too rich and too dry to take in all at a sitting. [15 Dec 2004, p.1156]
Outstanding Library Journal Nancy Pearl
The satire is biting but not distasteful, and Fellowes offers up a host of interesting characters. [1 Jan 2005, p.95]
Outstanding Los Angeles Times Merle Rubin
The dialogue in "Snobs" is indeed as good as might be expected from an accomplished screenwriter; what is perhaps more surprising is the admirable narrative control and sparkling exposition displayed throughout. [30 Jan 2005, p.R8]
Favorable Salon Priya Jain
What makes the book so much fun to read is the narrator's trenchant observations about society and the people who will do anything to be a part of it
Favorable The New York Times Book Review Jonathan Ames
It's a good book but not a great one, though it has many great passages.
Favorable Publishers Weekly
A merciless and hilarious sendup of snobbery and social jealousy, revealing the pettiness and self-absorption of both the envious and the envied. [17 Jan 2005, p.34]
Favorable Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
Puckish and thoroughly pleasurable.
Favorable The Onion A.V. Club Tasha Robinson
A dense but absorbingly quick read that falls somewhere between a novel and a snide, skillful taxonomy of snobbery in one of its most elaborate and traditional forms.
Favorable USA Today Deirdre Donahue
This ability to mix trivial if amusing tidbits and sudden emotional drama gives Snobs real oomph.
Favorable Daily Telegraph Mary Wakefield
A good, fresh read.... Fellowes has an excellent eye for detail.
Favorable The Independent Philip Hoare
Fellowes is almost too good at revealing the mores of these people obsessed with their status, its maintenance, or its loss, and some might read this deft, entertaining novel with a horrified revulsion.
Favorable The Spectator Andrew Barrow
Provocative, titillating and seductive.
Favorable Booklist Margaret Flanagan
This delightful comedy of manners good-naturedly lampoons a class of people whose artificiality is so inbred it becomes positively genuine. [1 Jan 2005, p.814]
Mixed Village Voice James Hunter
It's as if Fellowes is writing for one of those modern publications hell-bent on explaining to benighted readers what chairs are.
Mixed The New Yorker
The polite firefights that ensue are very readable, but their presentation is somewhat muddled.
Mixed The Guardian Catherine Bennett
A doting guide to the English aristocracy.
Unfavorable Daily Telegraph Anne Chisholm
The trouble is that although Fellowes is an amusing writer with an ear for dialogue, his novel is emotionally anaemic.

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