Not my favourite Greek Myth Retelling. Ali's writing is very lyrical and heavily prose, so you either love it or hate it. On this occasion I wasn't a fan.

This was my first Ali Smith novel. Her writing is brilliant and so clever! I loved the spin on “boys meets girl”

Due to an administrative mistake, in the spring of 2010 I studied a French literature module on Gender Issues in Seventeenth Century French Theatre. Surprisingly, this class has had limited practical application in my post-student life. So you can imagine how thrilled I was, ten years later, to discover that someone had written a book about one of the plays that I studied. The myth of Iphis and Ianthe first appeared in Ovid's Metamorphosis but Isaac de Benserade's comic play was based on the same story. Iphis's father said that if his wife gave birth to a girl, the child would be slaughtered instantly. And of course, Iphis was born female. After praying to the goddess Isis, Iphis' mother decides to just ... go with the flow. Congratulate her husband on their healthy son. Presumably say he doesn't need to help change any nappies. In this sparkling book, Ali Smith takes this story as old as time itself and makes it dance.

Girl Meets Boy has a fabulous opening line, 'Let me tell you about when I was a girl, our grandfather says'. The story centres around two sisters, Imogen and Anthea, who live in a house left to them by their grandparents. Imogen is earth-bound, trying to fit in at Pure, the bottled water company that they both work at even as it becomes clear that the company is run by highly unscrupulous people. Anthea is a dreamer, hazing through the days until one day the company is targeted by gender-queer eco-protestor Iphisol, aka Robin, aka Robin Goodman. For Anthea, this is love at first sight.

Ali Smith's stream of conscious style gives the reader the full force of Anthea's emotion as she gazes upon Robin for the firs time. 'She had the swagger of a girl. She blushed like a boy. She had a girl’s toughness. She has a boy’s gentleness. She was as meaty as a girl. She was as graceful as a boy. She was as brave and handsome and rough as a girl. She was as pretty and delicate and dainty as a boy.' And isn't it funny how clearly you can picture Robin from that passage? It was so refreshing to read a love story featuring same-sex characters which actually allowed the lovers feel the joy of being in love. Girl Meets Boy is a novel that bounces and fizzes with delight, capturing very vividly that  'two people in a bubble' feeling that is so much of the early days of a new relationship.

Outside of this bubble though, Imogen is struggling with her own internalised homophobia. We are treated to her hysterical inner monologue, 'Oh my God my sister is a GAY.' Blaming everyone from their mother for splitting up with their father to the Spice Girls, Imogen is experiencing that helter-skelter feeling of the unfamiliar. What I loved about this passage is how it captured all the ways that society teaches us to 'other' homosexuality. Imogen remembers watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a teenager and we recognise that she had believed that the kiss between Willow and Tara was beautiful but that she knew that the correct response when at school was to make sick noises. Also back in the schooldays, Imogen remembers bullying Robin. And again we're back at Normal People, the sins you commit when all you care about is conforming. Yet it is the meeting point between these two people that gave Girl Meets Boy one of its crowning moments, at least for me. As a tipsy Imogen returns home and rambles to Robin about what the 'proper word' for someone like her would be, a kind Robin pours her a glass of water and tells her, 'The proper word for me, Robin Goodman says, is me'. And at that, I want to punch the air. Yes.

I grew up around homophobia but it has taken on many different shapes over the years. When I was ten, it looked like my classmates asking me if it was true that my best friend's mum (who was also my childminder) was gay. When I was thirteen it was everyone (including myself) labelling just about every noun we could see (tables, sweatshirts, chairs) as gay. When I was eighteen, it was my fellow-students calling homosexuals sinners. Always referring to them as a separate species, never reaching out in love. When I was twenty and working at a Christian summer camp, the word used was 'abomination'. Also in use was another word that began with an 'f'. In my mid-twenties, it was two lovely young men coming to our bible study group and cooking us all a delicious dinner but then one half of the room refused to sit with them. Such utter, utter gross bad manners within the Christian community. It was being a teacher and being told not to correct the children when they said that 'gay people go to hell' because otherwise their parents would complain. So instead the bigotry is handed on to the next generation. Worst of all though was the dear friend who I watched torture herself into denying her own sexuality, to the point where she became an unpleasant person to know - homophobia made her afraid of her true self. What I love about Girl Meets Boy is that Smith brings it back to the individual. It's about looking at a person and not trying to make them fit into one of the boxes that you have at the ready, but instead looking at them and actually seeing them and embracing who they are. It bothers me that this is still such a challenging concept for so many.

With an activist as one of its main characters, Girl Meets Boy is a book with an unashamed mission. Robin and Anthea go on a spray-painting protest, displaying statistics on misogynistic violence against women and girls. In honesty, I found this section less engaging. It's not news, we've heard a lot of this already and it felt quite 'crowbarred in'. I was interested though in how Smith engaged with her source material. Robin tells Anthea the myth while they are in bed together. The two of them take on the character names as pseudonyms. Like the best retellings, Girl Meets Boy made me see the original story differently. I had remembered the tale of Iphis and Ianthe as just another strange Greek metamorphosis myth but Smith's novel put it in context as part of a wider misogynistic history. There are still societies who slaughter their female children. In many cultures, ignorance (and a lack of imagination) leads to a belief that women cannot have true intimate relationships with each other.

I have seen some reviews that dismissed Girl Meets Boy as 'puerile' in its defence of lesbianism. I would add here that this links back to the original myth. Even in Benserade's play, one of the key lines is the lament of a by-stander that Iphis and Ianthe cannot possibly marry since 'ils manquent à leur hymene la meilleure partie' (so basically, they don't have 'the best bit' needed for consummation). The night after their wedding, Iphis goes to the temple and rages to Isis that she cannot live this way. Back with Ianthe though, it is clear that she has had quite a nice time. And it's funny, after my slog through the dark women-hating, women-raping halls of popular Greek mythology, returning to this story about two women figuring themselves out was a big breath of fresh air.

Another standout line from Girl Meets Boy was 'It's what we do with the myths we grow up with that matters'. This is a message that goes beyond reworking stories told by the Greeks and the Romans. It's about challenging the messages that society puts in your head. Smith has conjured up a vibrant medley of modernity and antiquity and through this she prompts her characters (and the reader) to some thought-provoking musings on morality and life itself. We are beyond the reach of the deus ex machina - there will be no divine intervention to render Robin a 'good man', it can only come from societal acceptance. The happy ending comes from a world ready to rejoice at the sight of two people in love.

This was first taste of Ali Smith's work but it definitely will not be my last. An imaginative refiguring (rather than a straight retelling) of a Greek myth, it looks at gender, identity, love, self-worth, the patriarchy (and the smashing of it) as well as a neat little inclusion (non-obtrusive & discreetly done - so often these issues are shoehorned in with little finesse) of a current hot topic (access to water.) But boy, how it's done is just breathtaking - the symbolism, the layers, the nuances - this is quality with a big Q. I particularly loved/was quite taken aback by the 2 stream-of-consciousness passages, that is the love making scene and Anthea's imagining of her and Robin's wedding, the latter merging this story with the myth upon which it is predicated (Ovid's Iphis and Ianthe) in the most joyous fashion. Excellent, highly recommended.

I started reading this short book, but did not fisnish. I just couldn't get on with the writing style sorry, and kept getting lost as to what was going on.

This is a retelling of Ovid's Metamorphosis myth and although I am unfamiliar with this myth, I very much enjoyed this tale. It is a short book but is written beautifully. I haven't ready any of Ali Smith's other work but I will be looking out for it. A fascinating story and great strong female characters

Quality Rating: Five Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Stars

Girl Meets Boy was one of the most wonderful books I've ever read. Impactful with its purpose and intimate with its style, Smith retells the story of Iphis with a new myth; one of acceptance, acitivism and love.

Smith shows intimacy with such a gentleness and quiet. Representation of homosexual relationships - especially between women - have long battled with the desire to be shown as just as fierce, but without the partiarchal competition that seems to be coded into our expectations of what romance should be. Smith doesn't try and pick one direction because she isn't really doing it for the sake of ticking the representation box; two of her heroines are lesbians because, well, they happen to be lesbians. It's a part of them, it's not there to move the story on. I think what caught me so deeply about this novel was the fact that the characters are so naturally themselves, in both their moments alone and with other people. Being able to show the difference between the two is what clinches it. That intimacy in the relationships, but also almost with the reader too, is what speaks so personally to the audience. There are sparks of humour that feel like in-jokes when we've seen them in the private world of a character before they share them on the outside.

The novel is just the right length, even under 200 pages. There's something to be said for a story that knows what it needs and fulfills that. While I understand the risks of publishing short books, there are so many out there that are padded with unnecessary filler that distracts from the actual story. Girl Meets Boy is short but to the point, and all the more powerful for it. The audience is left staring at the moral of the story (quite literally), and that's what makes it like a myth.

And the way in which Iphis' story is retold is so creative. It injects just the right amount of modernity to make it feel immediately relevant, while keeping those little ties back to the inspiration. For a Classics lover like, you get the feminist retelling as well as the storytelling of the original (of course the heroines know the Greek myths, of course they do). Iphis wasn't a myth I was quite as familiar with, but I still felt like I was in on the narrative. There are some retellings that are the spitting image of the original with a flowery sentence every few lines, or some are so distant from its inspirations that if you don't know the original to begin with you miss out on half the point of the whole book. Retellings are a wonderful platform for new commentary on the human experience within society, but some authors seem to forget that a commentary should be accessible by those it's commenting on. But Smith knows what she's doing; whether it's simply paralleling the myth of Iphis with her own heroines, or letting you sit down and enjoy our girls whispering the story to each other in bed, you don't have to have taken a classics degree to fall into this novel and (happily) never find your way out again.

Maybe it's particular to me, but I could see parts of myeslf in almost every character. And that's a truly rare and important thing. I'm definitely not the spitting image of any of our heroines and their supporting characters - I don't think I've ever found a character that I identify wholly with - but peering through the cracks and seeing individual qualities, reactions, and instincts reflected in a fictional creation still works wonders on the imagination. And it captures the essence of mythmaking because everything immediately feels cathartic because for once you feel as much like you're going through it with them as you can claim in a book review to make it sound nice.

I've always enjoyed reading Smith's stories, and there's no end to the way she can offer you an unexpected perspective on the human experience. But never have I fallen so in love with one of her books. This book caught me like a fish and it will be beloved to me for years to come.

I really enjoyed this retelling of the Iphis and Ianthe myth, although it did take me a while to fully get on board. In this version, we have two sisters, Midge (Imogen) and Anthea. Anthea meets Robin, the most beautiful boy she has ever seen, who happens to be a girl and what follows is an exploration of their relationship and how it impacts upon those around them. Firstly, as always, Smith's prose is just exquisite. The voice of each sister is so distinct and authentic and I particularly enjoyed Midge's inner turmoil. In such a slim volume, Smith tackles body image, lesbianism, sexual harassment in the workplace, feminism and the control of the world's water supply. Each issue is given ample exploration and you finish the book feeling wiser than you were when you started. Overall, I really enjoyed this book, particularly the second half when all of the disparate elements start to come together beautifully.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I repeat that I can't review this book, that it's not the first time I've had trouble with Ali Smith's style, and I'm sorry.

A retelling of Ovid’s ‘Iphis’, Girl Meets Boy is a part of a collection of short stories told by different authors based on myths and Smith’s contribution is a new twist on an old favourite.

What I like about the writing is how poetic it is, but also very grounded in the real. The fluidity of the words jars with it’s modern setting but it is done so well in ‘Girl meets boy’ that it makes for such an excellent read.

The characters of Imogen and Anthea throughout the book are well contrasted and grow as this novella continues, as Imogen sees well capitalism at it’s worst and Anthea falls in love with Robyn and ends up tagging in the streets, the contrast in the writing and the characters is done here so well.

I wanted to read this as an intro to Ali Smith as I’ve heard so much about her work, this has definitely made my TBR grow dramatically, if the writing in her books is anything like this.

I wasn't familiar with the Ovid tale that provides the inspiration for this book, and I wonder if, had I read that first, I'd have enjoyed it more? There were aspects that I loved - the different voices of the two sisters, and Midge's transformation from nervous parentheses to growing confidence, the comedy of the Pure board meeting and the horror of Pure's cynical commercialism. As I read, I felt that the story was on the slight side, and wasn't instantly enjoyable. However, I'm finding that, having finished it, it's something that I will ponder on, with images that will live in the memory.

What a talented writer Ali Smith is. I adore her work and have read most of her novels but somehow this one slipped past me. How glad I am that Canongate are reissuing it now and have given me the opportunity to read it via NetGalley.

Created in 2007 as part of the Canongate series of myths retold, this is a modern take on Ovid’s gender-shifting story of Iphis and Ianthe. It is great fun, combining the author’s trademark wordplay and exuberant wit with serious moral and cultural issues (principally the ‘privatisation’ of water supplies and women’s experiences in the workplace, both of which are, to my mind, still as relevant now as ten years ago).

One passage that struck me particularly:

‘My head, something happened to its insides. It was as if a storm at sea happened, but only for a moment, and only on the inside of my head. My ribcage, something definitely happened there. It was as if it unknotted itself from itself, like the hull of a ship hitting rock, giving way, and the ship that I was opened wide inside me and in came the ocean.
He was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen in my life.
But he looked really like a girl.
She was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen in my life.’

I can’t think of anything I didn’t like about it, except it was all over too quickly. Not to be missed.

Originally published in 2007 as part of the Canongate Myths series, Ali Smith’s ‘Girl Meets Boy’ gets a shiny new cover in this timely republication.

Fans of Ali Smith will (re)discover her exuberant, effervescent word play, a love of language and the complexities of meaning in a simple phrase as it is repeated, extended, and toyed with. A re-telling of the story of Iphis in Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ this is a story of love, sexuality and homophobia, big business and acts of guerrilla vandalism. It is short – short enough to read in one sitting, and if you haven’t read any Ali Smith before this is an excellent starter to her fictional world and her authorial voice. I’m of a certain age, slightly younger than Smith but old enough to get her references, and her humour and delicate observation are a joy to read. In a time and a world when bad news is all around us we need books like this to reaffirm our humanity and our potential. The rewriting of myths for a modern age is important; as one of the characters puts it: ‘It’s what we do with the myths we grow up with that matters’.

I admit to being a huge fan of Ali Smith and pretty much everything she does. This is a joyful, playful book that will, I hope, bring a smile to your face. I definitely recommend it.

ReviewShort and sweet.

I liked this book,the story,the style of writing... all of it.

Great stuff again from Smith.

I confess, I ran kicking and screaming from Smith’s xxx after reading no more than the first 5 or so pages – this was my second attempt at her, to try to understand what everyone else finds so substantial and rewarding. After all, I love Ovid; I love classical receptions; I’m interested in books about gender – and textual – fluidity – I should love this, right? Wrong. I think I’m going to have to admit that Smith is just, as they say, Not For Me.

I love some of her lines (the opening ‘Let me tell you about when I was a girl’, our grandfather says’) but almost immediately, halfway down the same page, Smith can’t resist the heavy-handed symbolism of grandfather’s work in a circus: headstands, tightrope walking and juggling are just so in your face about inversions, negotiations and ‘juggling’ between gendered identities. The wordplay, too, which has charmed others falls flat for me: from Scylla and Charybdis, to Cilla [Black] and Charybdis left me groaning rather than chuckling.

The political points are laid on and while I agree with them 100%, they feel unsubtle and a bit shouty; there’s also a sense of datedness about the whole thing. I did, though, enjoy the scene where Dominic and Norman, having dissed gays, both male and female, in clichéd terms then ‘are somehow roaring with laughter again - they have their arms around each other’: it may not be new, but the homoerotics of male friendship are used with both ironic force and humour here.

Finally, I should say that Ovid’s myth of Iphis may be ‘joyous’ as Smith describes it, but it’s also a story which reinscribes ideologies of gender and sexual difference: Iphis in Ovid <I>isn’t</I> what we would term a lesbian, she’s a girl who is so far from being able to imagine girls loving girls that her body is biologically transformed into a man’s. Smith updates this as we would expect – but for all her energy this was less fizz, more fizzling out for me.

I wouldn't want to put anyone else off, though: this didn't work for me, but does for some many others.

Ali Smith's work has been a bit of a mixed bag for me, but I enjoyed Girl Meets Boy. Parts of it are quite brilliant and other sections not so good, but as a whole it was well done, I thought. It is also commendably concise, packing a lot into relatively few pages.

Smith takes Ovid's myth of Iphis and re-sets it in 2007 in Inverness. She uses the structure to write beautifully about sexual identity and attitudes toward it, the role and treatment of women in the world, and about the behaviour of global corporations. In the eleven years since its original publication it has dated a bit and some of the points she makes, while still shockingly valid today, seem rather laboured and heavy-handed. At its best, though, this is a thrilling and sometimes disturbing read; for example, there is a sex scene which contains almost nothing explicitly sexual but is astonishingly powerful and evocative, and the scene in the pub where two boorish, "laddish" men offhandedly and unthinkingly demean the young woman with them is chillingly recognisable.

Ali Smith can sometimes lose me by going over the top with her flights of fantastical prose, however brilliantly written, and that did happen a couple of times in Girl Meets Boy. Also, at times it seemed rather like one of Richard Curtis's more sentimentally message-hammering scripts, but none of that spoiled the book for me and I can recommend it.

(My thanks to Canongate for an ARC via NetGalley.)