Like: A Novel [Hardcover]

Ali Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 1998

When we meet Amy Shone, she is a young parent struggling to raise Kate, a precocious eight-year-old. Amy is an enigma-a brilliant scholar who has forgotten how to read. She is estranged from her wealthy English parents and lives a nomadic life in Scotland, dragging Kate from one school to the next, barely scraping by. And then there is Ash, a fiery Scottish actresss who cannot shake her demons-chief among them an unrequited passion for Amy that has obsessed her ever since they met as teenagers. Like is the story of two parallel lives that intersect briefly, then diverge. It is also a timeless evocation of adolescence and its agonizing anticipations, its contradictory yearnings for freedom and safety, its blind quest for mastery over pleasure and pain. Deftly constructed, passionately imagined, Like is a remarkably mature debut for a powerful young talent.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A former academic flees the protection of her parents' upper-middle-class English home after a nervous breakdown deprives her of the power to read in this quiet, accomplished first novel from Scottish writer Smith (Free Love). The first section, alternately narrated by Amy Shone and her precocious seven-year-old daughter, Kate, contains sharp-eyed observations of the unconventional relationship of mother and daughter, who live as itinerants in a caravan park in Scotland. Amy doesn't know who Kate's father was, and, in her volatile mental state, is tempted to abandon her daughter on more than one occasion. But maternal love keeps her more or less stable. It is on Kate's behalf that she ultimately returns to her parents' house after an eight-year absence, where she borrows enough money to go to Pompeii. There, the area's historical resonance affects Amy in unforeseen ways. In the less successful second section, a young movie actress named Ash (short for Aisling McCarthy) reminisces about her relationship with the cold, brilliant Amy when they were both schoolgirls; her crush became a nearly overwhelming obsession when she followed Amy to university. After continual rebuffs, Ash commits arson in an effort to win Amy's attention?burning her books and implicitly destroying her academic career with the gesture. Smith's writing, at its strongest, is unhurried, perceptive, tender and graceful. This is a skillful portrayal of three unusual women who bring to their lives more questions than answers.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Kate Shone is as bright and unusual as her name, but this little eight-year-old has a problematic life. She lives hand-to-mouth with her mom, who moves from job to job, uprooting Kate just as she is making friends and getting used to her new school. But Amy Shone is no washed-out hippie or undereducated cocktail waitress; she's a scholar whose mother is an important TV celebrity, but something has happened to throw her off course, alienate her from her parents, and even render her illiterate for a time. Just what that cataclysm might have been isn't even hinted at until halfway through the book, but when the vibrant Aisling McCarthy is mentioned by a snoopy reporter, you known she somehow figured in Amy's current confusion. It hardly matters how, though, for the real treat here is Scottish first novelist Smith's mellifluous prose and wonderful rendering of the relationship between mother and daughter. For all literary collections.?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1st edition (August 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151003505
• ISBN-13: 978-0151003501
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,114,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fantastic read, May 1, 2001

By 

lady detective "sakura kitty" (east coat) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Like: A Novel (Hardcover)

The book, divided into two very distinguished and separated halves, is an intriguing, entertaining and inspiring read. i finished it a few days ago and i keep thinking about it, i want to go back and read it again. told from several different perspectives, the meaning of the first half shifts considerably upon completion of the novel. smith writes beautifully. there were so many wonderful sentences that i read again and again, thinking 'yes, exactly! you've captured it!'

highly reccommended!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars more! we want more!, May 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Like: A Novel (Hardcover)

Way to go Ali Smith! More questions than answers, just like life. Lifelike even.

Read Like. Even if you think you might not like it. You don't have to. That's why it's really something.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worthwhile, November 21, 2005

By 

bluwhisper (Lawrence, KS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Like: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is a very good, ambitious novel and a much better book than Smith's more famously hyped "Hotel World."

The form of the book, its symmetric halves, gives the novel much of its interest and creates some of its biggest problems. As others have noted, the information presented in the "Ash" section sheds new light on the first half of the book. While much becomes clearer after a reread, I don't think that a book should demand a reread in order for readers to have access to the information they need to interpret the actions of characters.

I also think that a few crucial moments were missing from the novel. Of course most of them can be inferred, but the book would have been more satisfying had Smith explicitly narrated a few of the scenes from the past that fell through the cracks in the structure.

While some other reviewers prefer the "Amy" section, I honestly think that while it's more lyrical, in many places the writing also tends to be somewhat lethargic and obtuse.

Despite my criticisms of the book, I still found it to be a moving, worthwhile read.


In fact, Smith's elegant and nuanced depictions of how internal and external forces draw people together and (more often) keep them apart are the real meat of the novel. And in her descriptions of these moments, when twin brothers draw their fists at each other, when a married couple walls their house into two equal halves, when people choose to play a role at the expense of their own well-being, are the moments Smith succeeds most brilliantly.