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.

Just like every Ali Smith book, this is masterfully and beautifully written. But I’m afraid I just don’t need any more totalitarian government-driven dystopias.

This isn’t a new concept and it’s one that has really been overused in the last 20 or so years. I think there’s an issue in dystopian and speculative fiction of this sort, which is that all dystopias largely are alike, both in terms of how a society gets there and how it functions after it arrives. It ceases to be an interesting concept unless someone reinvents how it works, and while Smith’s lyrical prose adds value to the novel, the plot and premise are no different from the rest in this overcrowded subgenre.

I suppose I’m a bit sour on dystopias in general because it sort of feels like we live in the beginning of one now in 2025 America, which leaves me feeling a bit like the whole genre has ceased to have any fantastical entertainment value and also that it needs to be reclassed as a subset of Horror rather than Fantasy/Speculative Fiction. And of course, it’s not much fun to read something like this if it starts to feel like potential nonfiction for the not so distant future.

I think there’s a segment of the reading population that actually copes with real world issues by reading this kind of novel, and if that’s you I expect you’ll like this more than I did. But I still think that because we see so many books that deal in this particular breed of speculative dystopia, we need to demand more originality of narrative out of the authors who continue to use it, no matter how beautifully they write.

Ali Smith doing what she does best! You have to get over the hump of accepting that Bri and Rose, the sibling main characters, love words as cleverly//in the same way that Smith does, but then you're in for an experience. The pacing and dialogue is deceptively breezy, the plot ticks along, and a wide cast of supporting characters are rendered quickly but precisely. I always feel like there's a bit of hokiness when authors get around to naming and describing the elements of a dystopia: who the oppressed peoples are, what the devices are called, etc. There's a little clunkiness in the world-building (anybody understand what the machines were doing??), but it's forgiven on the basis of the humor of the dialogue and the surprising and perfect details of the children's lives that make their relationship feel so real. Excited to read the next novel!

this book really fits the mood of my 2025 so far: creepingly dystopian, but maintaining some hope, some avenues of joy and resistance. also, there's a horse, and i was once a Horse Girl, so that had deep appeal.

i loved Gliff top to bottom, but i want to call out the pacing first of all because it worked especially well for me. the way the story and the world unfolds, through the perception of a sheltered kid—and periodically, their future self—really captured the sensation i have right now, of continually learning new and increasingly worse information about how my country and others are actually being run, and where they're going. the innocence of Bri and their sister Rose, and how untouched they are by the literal and figurative brainwashing of technology, creates an opportunity to slowly explore more and more dystopian ideas and experiences that are already happening to other people around them. it's like watching a mystery unfold, and then getting smacked by understanding when Bri's future self interjects; i went on a roller coaster of fear for Bri and Rose, delight at their small and spirited acts of defiance, and the dread/hope mix that comes from knowing where a character ends up.

all of the side characters are exciting as well, real and specific in their personhoods, including the titular horse Gliff. that realism, all the weird idiosyncrasies of actual people, contrasts so effectively with the mundane horror of the world around them and with the very large messages the story is engaging with about knowledge, and community, and liberation, and kindness. about how easy it is to become a part of a terrible machine, and also that there's still hope to break out of it and create disruption on your way. that last part is a hard concept sometimes—that even a person who has been molded to do awful things, for whom cruelty has become normal, can reach a tipping point or find a way out, and what they do next is as important to consider as what they did before. it's a theme that's coming up for me across my media consumption, and it's one i am really trying to integrate into my thinking about the real world.

that was a little bit of a ramble, but this book has me thinking big thoughts! overall i really, really enjoyed it, and i'll be thinking about it for a long time.

Thanks to NetGalley and Pantheon for this eARC!

I was first introduced to this book via the book community on TikTok a while back. I love narratives that really play and experiment with prose to help tell a story. I wasn't sure what to really expect going into this book, but I loved every bit of it. It was part Brave New World, part Kafka fever, and Orwellian themes. Also, this was my introduction to Ali Smith's writing---and I can't wait to read more! This was an absolute perfect book for the time we're living in right now. I highly recommend this!

I am a big fan of Ali Smith. I devoured the Seasonal Quartet and eagerly awaited the related Companion Piece. So i was excited to see that she was writing a duology of sorts, starting with Gliff.

Gliff is narrated by Bri/Briar, as they look back on the weeks following their abandonment by their mother and her partner Leif. They, and their younger sister Rose, are "Unverifiables", which leaves them homeless and on their own. Rose forms a bond with a horse destined for the slaughterhouse, who she names Gliff, Rose and Bri's discovery of a hidden community of other Unverifiables leads to a series of events that call into question their status in the state. I am purposefully vague because it is better to read and discover the story without knowing too much of the plot.

"Gliff" is a word with a slippery definition. It refers to a glimpse, a sudden moment, or a scare. When Rose names the horse Gliff, she does not know just how apt the word is. The siblings live in a liminal world, existing only in glimpses to those in charge in order to evade being sent to re-education facilities. The world that Smith paints is seen in glimpses as well: the dystopia is never fully explained, you only understand what you need to for the story. The vagueness gives the story more a sense of unease.

I have mixed feelings about this story. First and foremost, I think it requires a close read, which I did not give it. I think it demands even a re-read to catch all the nuance (I feel this way about many of Smith's books). Smith presents a lot of interesting ideas about citizenship, gender, belonging, and the power of government, but I wanted. more. My hope is that she will continue to flesh these out in the companion novel. That said, the writing is excellent, as always. It was eerie reading this book at this time and place, a feeling similar to when I read Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. Overall, it was an engrossing and unsettling read even if I didn't love it.

Thank you Pantheon for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Gliff by Ali Smith is, by design, a murky dystopian in both vibes and clarity — at least at the outset. This is in no small part because it focuses on a family that lives on the fringes of society, specifically two young siblings: Bri (the elder, first-person narrator) and Rose. That they are outsiders is only compounded by their youth, not to mention the way their mother shielded them from the bonds of an increasingly restrictive world. When the siblings are separated from their mother, they are on their own and we are on that journey with them. So their ignorance is our ignorance. And much of Gliff’s narrative elegance is in the way Bri and Rose traverse these dangerous outskirts with perspectives that make clear not only what is lacking from their knowledge of the surrounding world, but also and perhaps most importantly, what’s been instilled.

And amid all that they are introduced to a horse they name Gliff. And what does that mean when we name a thing?

Bri and Rose are the Unverifiable, those who live outside the realm of an authority obsessed with data and classification, making it that much easier to ensure the surfs support the ruling class. Gliff is clearly concerned about our data-driven obsessions and how they may be used to label, categorize, dehumanize and restrict. The irony is that the very words we use to label, name and classify change over time and through various domineering languages. And Smith toys with this idea over and over again, exploiting both its power and impotence.

This is a book that loves words. It’s chapter breaks are riddled with plays on words and echoes of titles you will be familiar with. And this playfulness is what separates Gliff from nearly every other dystopian novel that I’ve read. It’s more curious when you think it’s going to be preachy (there’s no need for preaching since the evils are so fundamental).

In the first half of the book, the more sinister elements Bri and Rose are avoid are gelatinous, less defined and less understood — especially to them. In the second half, however, the architecture and design of this surveillance state comes further into form and in all sharp angles. You will recall the harshness of Orwell’s 1984 and narcotic numbing of Huxley’s Brave New World.

But Gliff, the first in an intended duology, maintains a playfulness and a spirit that also reminds me of Station Eleven. The story is light on plot and often feels like something between a dream and a nightmare with a child’s lightness in spirit under truly bleak circumstances. The words we utilize to tell such stories may change and are constantly redefined, but together they build something more essential, longer lasting and forever inspirational.

4.44 / 5

"One of the things you’re not allowed to say in this country is that the tyrant is a tyrant."

I went into this story completely blind and in some ways I'm a little regretful of that. Ali Smith is new to me, but I'm at least passingly familiar with her style; however, I was not expecting this strange, big-brother-esque dystopia as narrated by children. The relationship between the narrator sibling and their little sister was interesting, and the way the narrative bent time and perspective equally so. I was immediately drawn in by the appearance of the mother and the abandonment by their acting guardian, but I felt a little lost drifting in the stream of consciousness until I bumped into the future/present voice of the sibling and began to put the whole picture together. I loved the significance of words throughout the story, especially the refrains of 'horse' and 'gliff', yet I feel like I might have missed some of the meaning of the body of the text while I was trying to figure out the larger arc of the story.

I'm planning to reread Prophet Song soon, and I think that may be a strong reference or recommendation for readers of Gliff.

Thank you to Pantheon for the opportunity to read and review!

"So I’ve spent the last five years of my life not letting myself think any of this. Occasionally though, over this time, a sharp-edged piece of it surfaced in me anyway, like a pottery fragment of something that was once a plate or a cup, an ordinary household thing, will if you’re digging in the ground , and you see it, pick it up, wipe the earth off it and turn it over in your hand."

In Ali Smith's latest novel Gliff, narrator Bri is recalling events spent with sister Rose, a time they were separated from their mother and moved to a "safe" house where they were left to fend for themselves. They were children. They befriended a horse. 

The circumstances are unsettling, the setting a vaguely dystopian future where there are "unverifieds" and a family might wake up to its house surrounded by a freshly painted red boundary line, indicating it's time for them to move on. Bri and Rose are barely surviving, sheltering with other unverifieds. And the horse. 

It's dreamy, it's sad, it's harrowing, it's laugh out loud funny. Ali Smith's signature playful prose make this a novel that lingers, that is worthy of long, uninterrupted reading. 

"Is your name really Colon? I said. He spelled it. It really was. Who called you that? Everyone calls me it. My father. My brother. Have you got a little brother called Semi? my sister said. Or are you named after an ancestor’s intestines? He looked bewildered. Is your second name Ization? my sister said. I laughed."

Gliff will have a companion novel, Glyph, published later this year. I'll be in line...

My thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the digital ARC. Gliff is out February 4, 2025.

Finding hope and humor in a grim future

Two British siblings are living in a future world defined by strict rules and near complete surveillance, and they have unfortunately found themselves outside the accepted boundaries of it. As "unverifiables" Brice (later Briar) and Rose are looked at with suspicion, kept separate from those who live according to the dictates of society and are even in line for a form of re-education; a brave new world indeed. They set off on a journey that sees them cross paths with a horse named Griff (which in Scotland, the reader is told, means a transient moment, a shock, or a faint glimpse). As the pair search for a way to maintain their freedom in this dystopian world that does not value it, Gliff provides them with hope and a way to connect.
When I think of dystopian fiction I don't often consider humor to be an integral part of its makeup, but here author Ali Smith finds a way to weave it into the story, one rendered through the both innocent and perceptive views of the two young protagonists. For those anxious about a world of increasing technological advances which increase the level of surveillance possible to inflict upon the people of the world as well as the encouragement of divisions that separate us all into groups of "accepted" and "other" rather than identifying ways to make all become "us", this story will take you along one path towards which we may all be headed. The author's imagination and gift for language make this an interesting tale which confronts several issues confronting today's world, issuing a chilling warning of what could happen while showing the resilience of human nature which in turn offers hope. Readers of authors like Rachel Kushner, Ian McEwan and of course Aldous Huxley might find this novel of appeal. My thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor/Pantheon Books for allowing me access to a copy of Gliff in exchange for my honest review.

In a not too distant future, where Chanel, Gucci and Nike continue to operate in tourist venues, two young teens, Brice or Briar,the non-binary narrator of Smith’s inventive speculative novel, and their sister, Rose, accompany their mother’s partner, Leif, as he ferries their mother to her new job at a fancy hotel. When the trio return home, their house is ominously encircled in red paint and Leif urges that it is time to go. After their camper is also marked with red paint in the Tesco lot where they had spent the night, Leif leaves Briar and Rose in an abandoned house with cans of tinned food and some cash, promising that he will return in a fortnight. They eventually join a group of “unverifiables” who are squatting in a former school where they have access to a telephone, but they are unable to contact Leif, whose number was disconnected, or their mother, as the hotel claimed there was nobody by her name working there.

Booker-prize nominated Smith has created a world of environmental collapse and pandemics (we are told that there were lockdowns, and when they were lifted, people were delighted to return to the theater) with a populace under government surveillance and subject to data collectors: “cultural threats were everywhere according to the socialnet and social web.” As the novel progresses, we learn that the machine that paints red lines around houses and individuals is called a Supera Bounder resulting in the eradication of whatever is inside the red lines. Some people are described as “immortals’ while others are “temporary” or “unverifiables” who are subject to “re-education,” receiving foul jobs tending to human excrement and industrial waste, while children were given jobs suited to their small hand sizes, like removing metal from old batteries, resulting in horrific injuries. Although not specified, it seems that the duo’s mother — who thought smartphones were liabilities — was sacked for engaging in whistleblowing activities when she was the publicist for a chemical company causing the family to be deemed “unverifiables.”

Inquisitive Briar and Rose bring a sense of wonder to the dystopian story, saving a horse Rose names Gliff (“like cliff with a G”) destined for the slaughterhouse. Smith’s dark vision is lightened by her innovative and engaging wordplay. Smith presents various definitions for the word “gliff,” a word that is polysemous, i.e., “a word that doesn’t just mean so many things, it can also mean all of them and none of them at once.” She opens a chapter with the words “Brave new world” and then presents variations on that theme: “rave new old,” “rave no,” “rave no us.” This is a challenging book that requires the reader to think. I understand that Smith will follow this novel with Glyph, which “will tell a story that is hidden in the first [book].” I cannot wait to return to this unsettling dystopia.

Forever love Ali Smith. Some beautiful writing here, and feels very classic Smith. Sad, heartbreaking. Maybe the right time for the book, maybe the absolute wrong time. She creates a world that isn’t quite our present, but a near-future that feels unnervingly plausible given today’s political, economic and social climate.

Ali Smith does dystopia. Fans know that she enjoys playing with words and this is a prime example of that. You, like me. might get lost in the language and lose track of the relatively slim plot which is heavy on warnings about, well, you'll see. While it wasn't my favorite of her works, it was interesting to spend time with her mind. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

For anyone familiar with her body of work, it is very difficult to dispute the fact that Ali Smith is one of the greatest writers of our era. I've been a fan of hers since I read How To Be Both in my first undergrad English lit class. I remember reading it for hours down in my dorm's basement laundry room, shocked and delighted by Smith's playful grammar and profoundly human characters. The experience of reading How To Be Both was foundational to my love of literature.

All of which is to say — I'm a fan of Smith's. I am familiar with her style — poetic, post-structuralist, dreamy, and joyfully confusing — so the novel's format wasn't surprising. I enjoyed reading Gliff. Spending time with Smith's prose is always a delightful and worthwhile experience. However, Gliff didn't captivate me as much as I had hoped it would. The dystopian setting felt thin to me, mismatched with the novel's tone and narrative structure. Additionally, I found the pacing uneven. I wanted to love Gliff, but reading it left me underwhelmed.

I think it's worth noting that I wasn't exactly in the proper Ali Smith headspace when I picked up this novel, around the time of the US inauguration. Smith's books require patience and dedication. I'm not sure that, at this point in my life, I was ready to rise to the occasion. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading Gliff and would recommend it to fans of more challenging literary fiction. Like I said, Smith is one of my favorite authors, and I always enjoy her work, even when it doesn't quite meet my expectations.

Many thanks to Pantheon and NetGalley for providing this e-gally!

Ali Smith is a new author for me, so I was curious to read her newest, "Gliff." The story of two sisters and a horse in a dystopian future was compelling, but I did have to get used to the way Smith uses language to tell a story. It's like stream-of-consciousness or poetry. However, I don't mind doing extra work as a reader, and in this case it was worth it. Will be looking for more books by this author. Recommended. Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon for the ARC. Pub Date. is March 6, 2025.

#Gliff

I usually like reading dystopian books but this was not the book for me. I spent the first third of the book so confused that I had to stop and read reviews to understand the book. Even after understanding, I never embraced the world. Fortunately, it was pretty short.

intricately hypnotic in the weirdest way possible in a near future that feels so close to now and yet completely not. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of Gliff in exchange for an honest review.

WOW, what a story. Dystopian but also just barely—near future that is believable, eerily so. Ali Smith is a master—her prose is so taut that each sentence and every word adds to and propels her story forward.

This book is shorter than some but when each word matters, it packs a punch.

What happens when the government takes more power and control away from citizens? What happens when you can’t choose to live your life in a way you want because the government says you can’t? These themes were striking, particularly reading this as an American during inauguration week.

This book is incredible, a compelling story told by a master of the craft. You can’t go wrong picking this one up and sitting with its themes. Highly recommend!