I was excited by the description of this book. The execution was a bit of a let-down for me, but at the end of the day I’m not sorry I read it and it had some real interesting threads worth pulling on.

I’m an avid fan of near-future speculative fiction and dystopias. This was more of a look at how a family unit loses everything to the surveillance state and how they, to whatever degree, “survive.” Some people in this society are deemed “unverifiable” - meaning they don’t fit the norm, they are dissenters, etc (for a variety of reasons.) The details on the State that is dictating this is left unsaid. I prefer stories of this type that dig a little more into what society is like, but this just wasn’t the focus of this novel. Not a horrible thing, just not my preference.

I believe there is at least a part 2 of this coming, the jury is still out if I’ll read it or not. I feel like the first installment did close some loops - but there are just so many more questions than answers.

It was the title that got me, and that wonderful green cover. I started in and immediately became carefully attentive as I was mostly lost. It took awhile to allow myself to float along in that way one must in free flowing narratives. I bonded quickly with Rose and her sibling Briar, and developed a building dislike for disappearing mother and Leif (who feels honorable but weak? or is he coerced?). My concern about red lines, horse care, neighbors recruiting children for protest purposes and other worries grew throughout the read.

Gliff: (Scottish) a glimpse; a faint trace: suggestion; a sudden fright: scare; a brief moment: instant
(Middle English/Northern English dialect) gliffen/gliff to look quickly, glance

My guess is that you, reader of this review, have with that expressive face of yours tossed off a number of gliffs at least a couple of times in the last 24 hours. Further research of this play with words throughout the read as been a bookish bonus.

(More than once during this read I was reminded by Rose's approach to life of the audaciousness of Alan Bradley's Flavia De Luce . . .wondering how she might fare through such dystopian adventures.)

This book is to be followed by Glyph , and I for one, am looking forward to it and how it relates to Briar and Rose, and their precarious living situation.

*A sincere thank you to Ali Smith, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Pantheon, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review independently.* #Gliff #NetGalley

Strange but imaginative, I could see this as a fascinating tv series. It felt like we only just peeked into this world.

Ali Smith's Gliff reaffirms her genius as a literary powerhouse, blending a near-future dystopian narrative with profound reflections on humanity. The title itself—a Scottish term for a fleeting moment—sets the tone for a story that is transient yet deeply affecting.

Smith crafts a world that feels both familiar and alien, where societal divides grow stark, freedoms erode, and the ominous specter of constant surveillance looms large. Her exploration of our humanity—juxtaposed against the dehumanization by algorithms and industrial powers—creates a poignant commentary on the times we live in. Yet, amidst this unsettling backdrop, Smith threads hope and individuality, reminding us why our complexities matter.

Her manipulation of language is nothing short of magical. Words bend and dance under her pen, forming a visceral connection that draws readers into her narrative. The wordplay, as ever, is quintessentially Smith—challenging, inventive, and unexpectedly delightful.

Gliff stands as a testament to Smith's brilliance in both vision and execution. It's an experience rather than mere storytelling, leaving readers not only captivated but also deeply contemplative. For fans of her work, it's another masterpiece; for newcomers, a profound introduction to her extraordinary world-building and linguistic artistry.

I love Ali Smith. However, this was just not for me. I tried multiple times to get into things and even went back to start from the beginning. I just couldn't connect with the story and the characters.

This one took a minute to sink in. It’s strange and sharp and kind of dreamy in places, but also deeply unsettling. The world feels way too close to ours, which made some parts hit harder than I expected. I loved the relationship between Rose and Briar—there’s a warmth to them that cuts through all the coldness of the world they’re in. Definitely not a light read, but if you’re into thoughtful, slightly off-kilter dystopian stuff, it’s worth it.

I don't generally love a dystopian novel but Ali Smith is such a wonderful writer. I loved my time with the text. She writes a really fully rounded character. Masterful.

In Ali Smith's deeply unsettling "Gliff," the reader spends several key days with people attempting to navigate life in a near-future dystopia that resembles England. Part of what makes the book so powerful is that you can see the likely outcomes of many current political and economic trends brought to vivid life. What if we stop sending kids to school and instead rely on devices to educate them? What if everyone's behavior is tracked at all times? What if corporations rely not only on that system of surveillance but also on forced labor of the young and infirm? A young girl named Rose and her older sibling Briar/Bri find themselves unchaperoned and homeless. Will they be able to survive? At what cost? And what does it mean to try to exist at the margins of such a merciless society? Not an easy read in 2025, but a very worthwhile one.

This novel is at once enigmatic and opaque, and yet authentic and deeply personal. The protagonist, Briar, and their younger sister, Rose, are two children set adrift in a not-too-distant dystopian future. They are funny and endearing, and you will surely love them. Rose, especially, is a naive sage who shimmers on the page. Her characterization is so strong that you will find it easy to imagine her as a leader who could eventually fight back against the state apparatus.

I loved this book and how the author explores themes of family, perspective, resistance, and surveillance. Sections of the novel contain a dark whimsy, not unlike Alice in Wonderland. I hope there is a sequel - I want to read more of Rose and Briar.

I have always loved Ali Smith, but Gliff has made me LOVE Ali Smith. This is quiet and beautiful and moving and a little strange. And I just really highly recommend everyone read this.

This was my first book by Ali Smith and perhaps I should have gone with something else first but even though I don’t think that I really vibe with this I didn’t totally dislike it either. There were parts of it that I liked very much and other parts that I found to be forced and what felt to me like trying too hard to be literary and metaphorical. Although I will fully acknowledge that it might just be a preference thing and I am just not somebody that enjoys getting too deep in the metaphor and symbolism world, this stuff tends to feel like something again to magical realism at times.

I did feel that there was some interesting parts of this, the dystopian setting was very brave New World, only the feminist perspective served i as a stark contrast to the more male centric Huxley. period I also enjoyed the commentary on the divide between the wealthy and the poor, the way Smith chose to tackle and examine this felt very blunt and stripped of all excuse. This is a topic that’s very relevant to our times and I felt Smith’s prospectives an opinion in the world she created.

Now that being said I still think that I may not be the perfect reader for this and that the right audience would appreciate this a lot more. Whenever I read a book like this I often question the necessity of certain elements and feel that the author could have gotten his or her point across in a much more Accessible way and that would not have distracted from the authors implied intelligence. To be perfectly honest it’s hard for me too not feel that a lot of of the book is a bit of an affectation, meaning there is a deliberate attempt at displaying one’s intellect through complex and complicated means, as if being complicated is inherently more intelligent than simplicity which is not the case. Again I think this may have just not been for me and others would probably like this a lot more, or I don’t know maybe it’s the type of book that people read and don’t fully understand but because it is written by a “literary“ author who is known for her intellectualism & complex writing they wind up thinking that it was great and sounded and felt so smart even though in reality a lot of of it went over their heads or just missed the mark entirely. I feel a lot of these types of books end up getting very high ratings because people believe that the author is a eyebrow author and so thus is automatically deserving of a higher rating

I never read Ali Smith before and I need to catch up on her backlist. This book was hands-down amazing. Haunting, lyrical, eerily prescient and at times horrifying—yet it somehow retained a sense of innocence and hope, which I think has a lot to do with the fact that the main characters were children (for the majority of the novel).

I wanted to share a passage that I particularly loved:
The children in that keyring photo looked like they were having a really great day. There was no such thing as AI children. You were either an alive one, or someone who’d once been a child and was now older, or a dead one; even if the children in the photo were advertising models –  which did seem most likely the more I thought about it –  then they were still children, or they’d been children once. Well, provided they weren’t invented by a computer collating thousands of digital images down into one single child then another and another, people who’d never existed. Even so, even the thousands of fragments of images AI would use to make a non- existent child had to have come from children who’d been complete children once. Where were they now? All of them, the maybe- real ones cupping their chins so happily here in the sun in the photo and all those ones whose images had been fragmented into digital splinters and borrowed and used to make up an aggregate image of a child who’d never existed. What were they doing in the world at this precise moment, the people these maybe- real children had become and the people the thousands of splintered borrowed children had become?

Gorgeous, gorgeous writing.

Absolutely pick this one up! Thanks so much to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor—and to NetGalley for my review copy. This one is out now!

Ali Smith crafts a gripping and unsettling tale set in a dystopian world where screens dominate, not through AI fears, but by isolating individuals through addictive personal devices. The novel explores how this addiction leads to deep alienation and fractured human connections.

As resources like lithium dwindle, exploitation rises, and a totalitarian regime takes hold, Smith critiques the erosion of societal and familial bonds. The story feels disturbingly relevant, offering a powerful commentary on the dangers of technology’s growing influence.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC I read in exchange for my honest review.

like percival everett's JAMES, this is a retelling(ish) of a classic i really didn't like that i think did a better job.

this takes on BRAVE NEW WORLD, which i found to be kind of basic and silly and also very misogynistic, and makes it more relevant to our times, and therefore scarier, and realer. it gives the reader more to chew on, both at the writing and at the thematic level. i am very impressed and excited we'll be getting more.

A story based in a dystopian world centred around two children and a horse. An autocratic, dictatorial administration has taken over. Rose and Briar's mother and stepfather have disappeared living them to fend for themselves. This book is part of a duology and hence the full story will unfold only when we read part two. The writing style is lyrical, you have to pay attention to detail. Otherwise you may have to come back for a re-read. I can't say I was blown away although I have heard so much about the author. I am definitely looking to read some of her earlier works. Recommend for die-hard fans of Ali Smith

Thank you Netgalley and Knopf Publishing for the ARC

Not for me, I could tell from the first page. Don’t get me wrong, Ali Smith is obviously a talented and classical writer. But I simply don’t enjoy her writing. I read Autumn and dnfed it. I did finish this one though, and I did find it more enjoyable. The plot was simple, the writing brilliant, and the characters one dimensional (probably because the writing caused me to reread every other sentence). All this aside, I would still recommend this to some niche readers.

Gliff is a classic Ali Smith novel, in that it's wholly original, a little weird, and almost eerily poignant in its commentary on our current social and political climate. Set in a seemingly near-distant future, Smith's universe here is alternative and even post-apocalyptic at times, but in ways that are familiar to readers— extreme crackdowns on immigration and citizenship, and brutal enforcement of the gender binary, for example. It's actually terrifying, in certain scenes, to realize how close we really are to some of these seemingly-dystopian governmental control tactics (especially in a Trump 2.0 world). Essentially, and as usual, Smith has her finger so perfectly on the pulse (and even in terms of pop culture— I very much appreciated the Taylor Swift references).

I will say that I wasn't as completely enthralled by the story as I was for Smith's Seasonal Quartet (though I did still cry, so that actually says a lot about the Seasonal books). Ultimately, though, Smith is a genius, this was genius, and I will continue to read her work whenever I need to hear from someone who gets it— the terrifying ordeal we are currently in, politically, and the hope we desperately need to get through it. Not many authors today are as important as Ali Smith.

Thank you to Pantheon and Net Galley for the e-arc!

I really, really loved the story but the writing style was a little hard for me to follow. I think this is entirely a matter of taste and time. I think I will pick this one up again in a few weeks and try again because I think it's a story I want to digest more thoroughly.

This is my first Ali Smith book. The lack of most punctuation is disorienting at times, and somewhat annoying at others. The story is prescient though and I liked the protagonist and his plucky sister.

Ali Smith returns with Gliff, a novel that feels like an abstract painting—brilliant, layered, and open to interpretation. Her signature playfulness with language and themes of art, time, and humanity make this another thought-provoking, unconventional read.

🌿 Expect:
✔ Lyrical, experimental prose
✔ A fluid, shifting narrative
✔ A meditation on change and perception

If you love books that challenge form and invite you to read between the lines, this is one to watch.