Glyph

I tore through this in two days, and I think the main reason why is that I genuinely enjoyed the characters' personalities. The strange, loving, damaged relationship between Petra and Patch emotionally resonated with me. Solid writing throughout. Smith is quirky in a way that I like.

For example: "...I grated the extra cheese into a bowl and watched it come apart from its block with something like a heightened understanding of what it might mean to be both whole and shredded."

Of course, I expected a horse. But not a GHOST one. But it was a perfect way for Smith to explore memory and history. The sisters' childhood stories of wartime death bleed into the present, while the book also looks directly at current-day political violence, and the question of what we're supposed to do with the terrible things happening around us.

What Smith is doing with Gliff and Glyph is ambitious. Gliff is a Scottish word associated with a glimpse or sudden shock, while a glyph is a mark or sign that's been carved or inscribed, so there's this movement from something fleeting that you see to something that gets recorded and made permanent. More importantly, Gliff actually exists as a novel inside Glyph, and Petra and Patch discuss it as readers, with Petra giving it a hilariously dismissive review. It's a clever metafictional way of making the two books companion pieces rather than straightforwardly connecting their plots. I respect what Smith is doing because it's genuinely creative. My only issue is that, for my taste, they're connected a little too loosely, and I wanted more of a payoff between them.

The other thing that didn't quite work for me was the AI mention. I understood what Smith was trying to do with it, but the way it was executed felt a little too obvious and out of place compared with the rest of the book.

My honest thought the minute I finished the novel was that this was really great right up until the ending, and then the ending didn't quite land for me. I understood what Smith was reaching for, but it felt more conceptually satisfying than emotionally satisfying.

Even though I liked Glyph a little less than Gliff, I'm glad I read both, and I can't wait to see what Smith writes next.

3.75/5 stars.