Thought-provoking and haunting. A quiet dystopian that feels all too plausible. I haven’t read Brave New World (*gasp*), so I’m looking forward to reading other reviews to see if there were Easter eggs in Gliff that went over my head.

Futuristic surveillance state cautionary tale was not what I expected from Ali Smith - but, as with most subjects, she created a book I raced through, with some hope at the end.

This was my first Ali Smith, and it won’t be my last.

In Gliff, Smith drops you into a world that makes little sense and gets only more confusing as the story unravels, but she does this in such a tender way that you feel capable of exploring what she’s set out for you.

To be honest, I have no idea what she’s doing half the time. She makes my brain hurt in the best way possible. There are two children named Briar and Rose, a horse called Gliff, lots of living off the grid, and something sinister going on with data collection. I’m curious to read more reviews when this comes out so I can see what people more intelligent than me made of it all.

“Sometimes I think you're a very old and wise person disguised as you, I said.
Thanks, she said.
And sometimes, I said, I think you're one of the youngest greenest people I'll ever know.
I am all my me's, she said. I am complete.”

Thank you to NetGalley, Pantheon, and Ali Smith for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

"Gliff" by Ali Smith is a book that may not resonate with every reader, but that is part of its unique charm.

The story unfolds like a modern fairy tale, set against the backdrop of a near-dystopian future that feels both haunting and eerily familiar. The narrative departs from traditional storytelling, reading more like a lyrical exploration or a poem.

Throughout the book, Smith employs wordplay, emphasizing the importance of pedantic rules and the creation and observance of boundaries in an increasingly metaphorical and literal toxic environment.

This artsy work feels like a rumination on language, literature, and the social dynamics of our time. Those who approach it with an open mind and a willingness to embrace its innovative structure and style may find it rewarding or thought-provoking.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for providing the advanced reader's copy (ARC).

My first Ali Smith, what a joy to read! I feared it might be too inaccessible for me, but it was rather straightforward and at the same time very well written.

I appreciated how she managed to create a strange, big new world while keeping the story very small. No need to revert to sweeping descriptions of global disaster leading to authoritarianism - the story of two abandoned siblings and their discovery of a horse tells it all.

Below the surface lie what I suspect Smith is worried about: concern about the direction our modern world is taking, environmental destruction, the impact of smartphones on creativity and the lack of independent thinking.

dystopian and weird and not so much into it because of reading slump… but will check out more of Ali Smith in near future!!

This is one of the first Ali Smith’s I have read, and I had such a joyful time. I loved being in the mind of these children as they make their way through such a strange dystopian-like world. There is such a unique and untainted view that you get to see through a child’s perspective, and Smith writes this perspective very well. I felt childlike myself as I was reading this, thinking I was part of the group. The book weaves through joyful situations, silly explorations, and tragedy pretty seamlessly. I want to know what happens to these characters after the books.

I cannot wait for the second part of this book. Seriously. I want to know how both of them work together. What a great author.

Did I understand everything in this book? Nah. But did I eat it up? Absolutely.

This was my first time reading Ali Smith, though I've always been curious about her work. This book was such a unique reading experience. I had a range of feelings reading it -- protective of the children of in the book, disgusted by society, heartbroken, and then, somehow, hopeful again -- and all in the brief length of the book. This book was weird (in a great way) and it had a strong authorial voice throughout. Would love to reread this one again, and absolutely a title I will purchase upon release.

My only minor gripes against the book is in certain stylistic choices (I'm pro quotation mark usage, pleaseee) and at times I didn't know how much time passed between scenes, if any had at all? Regardless, I really enjoyed this book and I'm excited to read more by Ali Smith.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced earc!

Following on from her masterful Seasonal Quartet, which presented our current world and its problems in real time and with a heightened sense of immediacy and urgency, Ali Smith's new novel, "Gliff" lands us in the dystopian future presaged by those earlier books. Briar and Rose, two young sisters who have been separated from their mother for reasons that are unclear (but clearly sinister) and left in the care of her boyfriend Leif, return home in their campervan with him only to find a painted red line surrounding their house. Realizing that this line has singled the home and its occupants out as "unverifiables" who need "re-education," Leif and the sisters flee in the campervan, only to wake in the middle of the night to find that another red line has been painted around the van while they slept inside. Shortly thereafter, Leif leaves the girls in an abandoned home to fend for themselves; they find a horse they name Gliff and a hidden school occupied by a group of unverifiables who take them in--until a violent event separates them. The story then jumps five years forward, when one of the sisters--now working for the government--discovers information that could bring them back together.

This all sounds very dark, and it certainly is in parts, but "Gliff" is also animated by Smith's hallmark wordplay (a recurring riff on the words Brave New World and even the horse's name itself becomes another way of building the story) and by her exuberant portrayal of the sisters's often playful ways of adapting themselves to their new circumstances. Smith has already announced that this book is the first of a two-part series, which perhaps explains the unresolved ending. I look forward to reading the next installment.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Pantheon Books/Penguin Random House for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review. Recommended.

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘥𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘦, 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴, 𝘐 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘰."

In usual Smith fashion, we get the love for language in Twitter-sentences but done in a dystopian world. In a time where we are reduced to algorithms and data, what is the self and how does a self form at such a young age? You can always count on Smith to stay inventive in the literary world in structure and form. An interesting one that though boomerish at times, keeps intrigue afloat with precocious kids and a poeticism familiar of past Smith.

Gut punch of an end. Power and drive mark a fine landing on permanence, person, and passion in going all out against the grain.

A new Ali Smith is always exciting, but Gliff feels like an especially big leap in a (brave) new direction.

There are the expected similarities with Smith’s other work. These characters are very witty and very wordy. They’re skeptical of technology and admirers of the natural world. Smith’s playful, roundabout plotting also remains intact. But the addition of dystopian elements is what makes Gliff feel so bold and fresh. Darker and more streamlined than a lot of Smith’s novels, I imagine Gliff would make for a good introduction to her work. She goes headlong into the anxieties and fears of our future (and how mundane it’ll all feel when we’re living through it), without losing the much-needed thread of hope that runs through all her work.

As with all Smith's novels, I can't wait to read it again.

If you are an Ali Smith fan, you will love Gliff!

Gliff is a dystopian novel set in the near future. The common theme that Smith keeps the reader focused on is Brave New World. And set inside that world are two siblings, Briar and Rose, and a horse who is slated for the abattoir.

It is part look back at how Bri and Rose came to be separated from their mother and part look into the reality of life now. Bri is our narrator and they are brilliant. This is a novel I have not stopped thinking about since I finished it and I am very eager for the sequel (Glyph) to come out!

Thanks to Netgalley, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Pantheon for a digital copy of this book. It will be published February 4, 2025.

I really struggled to get a handle on Gliff, Ali Smith’s take on a dystopian novel. I can’t tell how much of the ambiguity in the text is intentional, as Smith does little to world build and allows readers to draw conclusions from the uneasy circumstances surrounding her characters. Smith hits on a lot of big themes fleetingly, from digital surveillance to climate catastrophe. She does not linger on any of these themes, in my opinion, enough for her to leave a unique stamp or interpretation on what the future may hold. In other reviews, I have seen readers draw interesting parallels between scenes in Gliff, and modern political figures and corporations like Amazon. For me this feel like a bit of a jump. I enjoyed the concept of reading a novel like Brave New World from a child’s perspective, but I found the lack of context really frustrating. All this being said, I seem to be in the minority of folks not rating this book 5 stars.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Gliff is due to publish February 4, 2025 in the U.S.

This is my first by Ali Smith, but I feel the urge to run out and read all her stuff. It's weird because I can give a brief description of what happened over the course of these pages, but also not really be able to tell you exactly what happened? I can't explain it. She took all the words and I have none left.

I received the e-arc from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This is one of those books that you close and think about. Is the dictator Trump or Putin? Is it set in the near future? What, in fact, happened to Bri's sister, or mother or Lief? And then you wonder. Is it another take on Brave New World, updated to technology and facial recognition and the end of privacy? Whichever of those it is, I found it strangely disturbing and difficult to read, filling me with more questions than answers.

The horse, bound for the glue factory, is an engaging character. But what does he symbolize? And what does the red paint mean? And why does whatever it surrounds get torn down or disappear? These are questions that Ali Smith does not answer. Rather she leaves you to ponder whether what we are doing to our planet and ourselves can result in the world we witness in Gliff.

Thanks to Net Galley and Penguin/Random House for allowing me an early read of this unusual yet fascinating novel.

Ali Smith can do no wrong. She writes with such an exacting lens, getting right to the heart of the matter at hand. That matter at hand in Gliff is a near future, where our MC Bri reflects on how they and their sister Rose are left behind by their parents in the midst of political turmoil. Bri and their sister survive on the fringes of society, navigating a wickedly dystopian world.

I haven't stopped thinking about Gliff since I finished reading it. It has a lot to say about the world we inhabit and the future it portends.

Another triumph for Smith. This is a subtle, not especially long yet chilling vision of an autocratic future and two free spirits within it. It relates to Lynch’s recent Booker winner, Prophet Song, in it’s disturbing and infecting vision of future terrors. The sisters seem a little old for their years, but the word play and dialogue and theming are terrific. Hope it wins something.

Ali Smith reinvents the dystopian novel, carefully building a near-future Britain that feels both banal and horrifying with subtlety and indirection. Briar and Rose are adolescent siblings left to fend for themselves in an unfamiliar provincial town after their whistleblowing activist mother and her partner are caught up in a neoliberal techno-oligarchic nightmare of re-education centers for "unverifiables" who resist digital surveillance, algorithmic sorting, corporate hegemony, and environmental degradation.

Having been raised to read dead-tree books rather than interact with screens ("educators") and to distrust authority, they exist on the margins of society, evading machines that paint ominous red circles around the residences of dissidents. Insufficiently aware of the ominous political danger they're risking, they find joy and freedom in taking care of a horse destined for the abattoir, and join a community of squatters living-of in an abandoned school. Several years later, we find Bri working as a supervisor in a parody of an Amazon warehouse staffed by corporate slaves with missing fingers, and reconnecting with someone who once knew Rose, and ponders the dissolution and separation of their family.

Smith perfectly captures the freshness, know-it-all-ness, and inquisitiveness of her young narrator's thought processes, and suffuses their musings with her usual dense and allusive wordplay. Beyond the all-too-real dystopian worldbuilding, I was slightly concerned that Smith has been over-working the same thematic ground, since the characters' sermons upon her regular themes of freedom, art, and beauty sometimes felt reduplicative of the loopy monologues from her Seasonal Trilogy and How to Be Both.

Thanks to Netgalley and Pantheon Books for giving me an ARC of this in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

This was a very good book! It went over the dangers of the overload of screens that we’re seeing day today. It is a dystopian book with lots of different themes mixed in. The writing was very well done, and it was an entertaining read!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!