Reviewed by Frank Rich NY Times Book Review, September 19, 2005. He says:

In her Wellington and Boston, as in her London, the racial melting pot is an established fact, to be savored and explored rather than mined for sociological morals. In “On Beauty,” anyone who is still arguing over it all at this late date is a bit of a dolt, oh so last-century and a ripe target for farce.

Smith’s first novel was “White Teeth” and highly regarded.