Girl Meets Boy

Girl meets boy. It's a story as old as time. But what happens when an old story meets a brand new set of circumstances?

Ali Smith's re-mix of Ovid's most joyful metamorphosis is a story about the kind of fluidity that can't be bottled and sold.

It is about girls and boys, girls and girls, love and transformation, a story of puns and doubles, reversals and revelations.

• "Clever, complex and thrilling" TLS
• "In this modern-day reinterpretation, Ali Smith, with humour and typical linguistic versatility, explores issues of homophobia, corporate and social responsibility and the sheer vertiginous feeling of falling in love." Independent on Sunday
• "A joyful and playful remix... The result is an ecstatic, exhilarating helter-skelter ride of a story which shows just how relevant Ovid's myth of the transformative power of love is to modern readers." Financial Times
• "As fresh and pungent as new paint" The Times
• "By the time I finished the book, my heart was beating and tears stood in my eyes, even as I had the biggest smile written all over my face." Kirsty Gunn, Observer
• "Those familiar with Smith's playfully inventive fiction will not be disappointed by this light-as-air retelling of Ovid's tale... The latest in a series retelling myths from classical literature, this jolly jeu d'esprit wears its heart defiantly on its sleeve." Christina Koning, The Times
• "Hats off to Canongate for this inspired series... [Girl meets boy is] a typically exuberant anti-consumerist tale, which has something of Ovid's erotic lilt to it... This slender, sweet natured, lyrical tale not only nods but winks and grins at the many books it could not have been written without." Caroline Miller, Guardian
• "Smith's style encompasses both the lyricism of poetry and the energy of a well-told joke, and she has a keen appreciation for magic of the everyday kind, be it the way musical notes are transformed into the song of a blackbird, or the precise moment two people meet and fall in love." Daily Mail
• "A joyful and playful remix... The result is an ecstatic, exhilarating helter-skelter ride of a story which shows just how relevant Ovid's myth of the transformative power of love is to modern readers." Financial Times