I will start this review with a slight disclaimer: I ADORE Ali Smith and she is one of my all time favourite authors. This isn’t indicative of my own enjoyment (which was ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!!) but how I felt it read as a text and how much I would recommend it to others. On to the review!
I greatly enjoyed Smith’s modern take on Ovid’s myth of Iphis as a discursive discussion on gender. She tackles homophobia and corporate politics amidst her typical humour interwoven with a lovely narrative of love in a small Scottish town. Her use of parentheses and flashbacks result in an immersive experience that we expect from Smith; her portrayal of Robin, or Iphisol, is gripping and likeable. While the protagonist, Anthea, could have been written as unlikeable and stringent, she is the opposite, and acts as a gateway into Smith’s discussion of fluidity in love and gender, echoed in the ‘Pure’ water company she works for.
However: her beautiful prose can be seen as somewhat inaccessible to a casual reader, which is one of the only reasons why this novel loses one and a half stars. The other, as I tend to find with Smith’s works, is that I am left wanting more than its 161 pages. The eccentric grandparents who open and close the novel, who sail off to sea and never return, act as a framework rather than beloved characters they could grow to be.
Nevertheless, Smith’s characters are fallible and loveable, and combined with her poetic voice, Girl meets boy is a beautiful retelling that perhaps could benefit from more context. But then, arguably, it wouldn’t be an Ali Smith novel – short but sweet, with an important message and immersive prose.
sundance poetry 