Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis (The Myths)

This novel by Smith is loosely based on Ovid's story "Iphis and Ianthe" from his Metamorphoses. It is about two sisters, Anthea and Imogen, who live in a small Scottish town in their grandparents house. Their grandparents disappeared while sailing Europe and left the house to the girls. The novel begins with a memory of their grandfather telling them a story which begins, "Let me tell you about when I was a girl," which brings squeals of delight and giggles from the little girls sitting in his lap. So it begins happily enough but we soon find out there is trouble in paradise.Both girls work for a corporation called Pure, a bottled water company, which is not all that it seems. While Imogen is moving her way up the corporate ladder, Anthea is unhappy at work and feels out of place. Then one day Anthea is looking out of the window at work and sees what she thinks is a young man in a kilt writing graffiti about Pure on Pure's walls and signing his work Iphis. Anthea is intrigued so she rushes out of the office to check it out. Upon getting close to this stranger, Anthea thinks: "He was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen in my life. But he looked really like a girl." It turns out to be a girl, a girl named Robin, who had gone to school with the sisters and Imogen remembers her as being weird even then. But soon Robin and Anthea begin a guerilla warfare type of campaign against Pure and start posting their messages all over town.Meanwhile Imogen get a promotion for a creative idea she has and is sent to Pure's base camp to meet with the boss, Keith, who turns out to be an evil mastermind after world dominance. This totally turns Imogen around about the corporation and what she is doing with her life. Without telling everything about the novel I will stop here and let you read it for yourself. It is a delightful little novel and not at all like most of the stories in Ovid's "Metamorphoses" as it is much too lighthearted for that. Imogen, Anthea, and Robin are all delightfully delicious characters who you will fall in love with.

Different;well; well written

Great book in the Myths series. Challenge of political correctness, sexual curiouisty, fantacy all I a modern day myth. Fun!

You needn't have read the story that "Girl Meets Boy" retells (the tale of "Iphis and Ianthe" from Ovid's METAMORPHOSES) to love this delightful novella. The writing is marvelously crafted (laugh-out-loud funny at many points), the story is uncommonly imaginative, and the political message is delivered with humor, wit, grace, and creativity. Wonderful!

I’m currently on an Ali Smith binge, and this slim volume strikes me as a quickie: quickly written, quickly read. It’s an amusing retelling of the myth, remarkably joyful. The best section comes near the end, where Smith is at full stream-of-consciousness describing a wedding.

A good enough book, but not one that moved me in a life-changing way. Smith doesn't quite pull off the abstractions where she wanders into the Iphsis myth, but I respect her for making the effort to do something that you don't find in every lesbian love story you come across.

Amazing book and fantastic writing by Smith. Her novels is well written and truly lovely and captivating to read. The whole series of books are an amazing undertaking. I enjoyed and recommend this book to people who appreciate good writing and plot

Daughter loves it!

I loved this book. The only negative reviews I have read seem to be from people who love myths. This isn't a retelling of Metamorphosis, it's a book heavily influenced by Ovid's myth.I don't want to spoil anything so all I'll say is that if you like realism smattered with the fantastic then you will love this book. And if you love this book, go and read Hotel World too!

I feel like I must have missed something with this book. For all the reviews proclaiming it a genius retelling, an avant-garde novel and a tour de force of storytelling, I found it to be merely an exercise in pretty prose writing and dialogue.Don't get me wrong - this is a beautifully written book. There were quotes in this book that I've highlighted; there are pages that I've folded at the corners so I can find them again when I want to read a wonderful line. But that's all they are, and that's perhaps why they stood out so starkly; they're just beautiful lines in an otherwise rather empty narrative.In terms of character, I had to struggle very hard to see any. Despite the fact that the narrative is told from more than one viewpoint, both narrative voices sounded exactly the same, with the only discernible difference being that Midge tended to think in almost staccato parentheses whereas Anthea's thoughts were more fluid. Both characters seemed to be almost interchangeable, and as for the character of Robin - well, she was really more of an archetype than anything else. An enjoyable archetype, yes, but an archetype nonetheless.I also thought that the plot was poorly paced and jumped from one narrative event to the next with little to no context, meaning that the actual significance or indeed relevance of certain plot points was totally lost. It's a shame, because the actual plot itself was interesting, although slightly thin. I think that Smith could have done with an extra 50 or so pages to flesh things out a bit more. Bare bones are fine if there's a reason that they're skeletal. In contrast, the ending of the book dragged so terribly that it was a real chore to finish. The last seven or so pages could really have been condensed into one simple paragraph; the only casualty would have been some stunning poetic language, which this book doesn't lack anyway. I think a harsher editor might have been useful in this case.I didn't hate the book. I want to make that clear. I'll certainly reread it in the future. I just wish that there was more to it behind the lovely prose and the deft wordplay, because on first reading, it seemed like a rather hollow narrative.

As always by Smith a stunning retelling of Ovids metamorphoses bought to modern day with a touch of romance and activism , flowing with beautiful imagery and experimental language

I enjoyed this and have read a few others in the series. I don't feel they really get under my skin enough. But I liked this, for face value

So original!Loved that it is openly queer literature , not coy nor didactic. Just a love story really. Beautiful and unusual writing style : rather stream of consciousness but neither overwhelming nor over sentimental. Give it a try!!