I read this book for a course on non-canonnical literature at Uni. I'm not sure what I was expecting from a retelling of a classical myth, but I really loved this book.

The myth that Ali Smith re-created is Iphis'. In this story, Iphis is born a girl, but due to her father's intentions of killing his female daughter (he had threatened to kill her if their first born wasn't a boy, apparently he wasn't planning on impregnating his wife more times than those needed to have a boy), so her mother tells him that she has given birth to a girl (yeah, her husband didn't even ask to see the penis or something. Maybe he wasn't the sharpest pencil in the box). Iphis is brought up as a boy and fells in love with Ianthe, with whom his father (who still doesn't know that his teenage son doesn't have a penis)has bethroted him (I'm referring to Iphis gender identity here) with. Iphis is worried about not being able to satisfy his wife, so he prays to Isis, who gives him a penis.



The book is set in modern-day Scotland, so yes, we don't have goddesses performing sex-reassignment miracles. Actually, the character who stands in for Iphis, Robin, is not even transgender. As her mythological counterpart, she has a gender-neutral name, and she is somewhat androgynous (but uses sher/her pronouns throughout the novel). When Anthea (which sounds a little like Ianthe) meets her, she thinks at first sight than Robin is a boy, but she is soon proven wrong and quickly falls for this mysterious girl.

Their relationship is amazingly described. Both of them seem to complement each other in every level. And their sex scene is... out of this world. Somehow, Smith managed to write a sexy and endearing scene without using any mention to body parts. Her description of the sensations is powerful.

Then, the novel goes with Imogen, Anthea's sister. She has a hard time trying to understand her sister's love for another girl. She tries to find reasons and motives behind it, but she fails to do so. I guess that one of my only issues with this book was how fast she decided to accept her sister. But, again, it's her sister who we are talking about. Maybe love for her sister was stronger than her prejudices. Also, she didn't seem to have a bad opinion on homosexuality, she just have never met one.

The ending, with Anthea telling us "I married her, Reader" (Jane Eyre allusion!) is sweet. She describes their wedding in a dreamy way and it feels like some sort of fairy tale sequence (yeah, in my head was even a little bit Disneyfied).

In the end, I was left with a good feeling. I like it when books leave with such a fuzzy warm feeling. I needed a story with a happy ending when I read this, and that is what I got.