Greta and Valdin
- Author Rebecca K Reilly
- Narrator Eilidh Beaton, Gary Furlong, Jackson Bliss, Natalie Beran, Nico Evers-Swindell
- Publisher Cornerstone
- Run Time 9 hours and 29 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Family life fiction, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Coming of age, Narrative theme: Love and relationships.
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Titles Purchased
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
ONE OF BBC'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2024
'Hilarious, touching and hotly sublime'
JULIA ARMFIELD
'Warm, witty and utterly idiosyncratic'
ALICE SLATER
'Generous and tender'
NEW YORK TIMES
Siblings Greta and Valdin have, perhaps, too much in common. They're flatmates, beholden to the same near-unpronounceable surname, and both make questionable choices when it comes to love.
Valdin is in love with his ex-boyfriend Xabi, who left the country because he thought he was making Valdin sad. Greta is in love with fellow English tutor Holly, who appears to be using her for admin support. But perhaps all is not lost. Valdin is coming to realize that he might not be so unlovable, and Greta, that she might be worth more than the papers she can mark.
Helping the siblings navigate queerness, multiracial identity, and the tendency of their love interests to flee, is the Vladisavljevic family: Maori-Russian-Catalonian, and as passionate as they are eccentric.
Rebecca K Reilly's exploration of love, family, karaoke, and the generational reverberations of colonialism will make you laugh, cry, and fall for the whole Vladisavljevic bunch.
©2024 Rebecca K Reilly (P)2024 Penguin Audio
Critics Review
Reilly’s voice is delightfully confident . . . Greta & Valdin is a fantasy — specifically, one about the kind of quirky, progressive, dramatic-but-not-traumatic family everyone daydreams about. And for that reason I think lots of people will find it a total pleasure
‘[A] funny, clever, emotionally intelligent novel . . . Very witty but also moving and full of great one-liners
Greta & Valdin is hilarious, touching and hotly sublime. The kind of novel that simultaneously makes me wish I were funnier and absolves me from the need to try – I’ll never be as funny as Rebecca K Reilly (and that’s ok)
A big fat slice of joyful queer family life, peppered with messy breakups, bad dates and terrible decisions. You’re gonna fall in love with the warm, witty and utterly idiosyncratic Greta & Valdin
The novel is most lovable when the family’s dynamic is explored. You can’t help wanting to pull up a chair when they gather around the dinner table… Reilly’s warm, overflowing novel defies categorisation because its characters are too complex and multifaceted to be easily summed up… If this novel shows us anything, it’s that love — of family, of romantic partners, of community — is most joyful when it’s without limits
A huge hit when it was published in New Zealand, fingers crossed its considerable charms chime with an international audience – such success very much deserves repeating
Within the first few pages of GRETA & VALDIN, I was already struggling not to laugh aloud in my crowded office. I wanted to tap my colleagues on the shoulders and read lines to them, in the hopes they, too, would cherish Rebecca K. Reilly’s little kernels of humor and truth
Greta & Valdin is one of the few genuinely funny books I’ve ever read. Totally delightful, psychologically astute, and dry as an astronaut’s space cracker. It’s like if Elif Batuman wrote Franny & Zooey, but gay. I want the whole thing as a lower back tattoo
GRETA AND VALDIN feels somehow totally new and beautifully familiar at the same time, like the kind of book you’ve been longing to read your whole life. Part comedy of manners, part family epic and all contained within a compulsive, charming clutch of pages we couldn’t put down. Both ruthless and hilarious, offering hope and a wink for queer romantics everywhere
An absolute delight … a gloriously picaresque celebration of messy, complicated love
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