Description
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.
About the Author
Rebecca K Reilly (Ngaati Hine, Ngaati Rehua Ngaatiwai ki Aotea) is a Maaori novelist from Waitaakere, New Zealand. She has a BA (hons) in German and European studies from the University of Auckland and an MA from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, where she won the Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing for 2019.
Reviews
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 * Times *
'[A] funny, clever, emotionally intelligent novel . . . Very witty but also moving and full of great one-liners * Daily Mail *
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) -- Julia Armfield
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 -- Alice Slater
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 * New York Times *
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 * Marie Claire *
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 * ELLE *
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 -- Hera Lindsay Bird
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 -- Mikaella Clements & Onjuli Datta, authors of THE VIEW WAS EXHAUSTING
An absolute delight ... a gloriously picaresque celebration of messy, complicated love -- Emma Hughes
I laughed, I cried, I cheered with Greta and Valdin. This is a novel that tastes like life -- Margaux Vialleron
Heartwarmingly tender and raucously funny, with the sophistication of a Shakespearean comedy, Greta & Valdin is replete with swoonworthy queer romance, hilariously eccentric sibling hijinks and mature reckoning with the complexities of family heritage. A deliciously perfectly bittersweet delight -- Leon Craig
As Greta and Valdin come into their own-helped by, and helping, the many weirdos in their lives-readers can root for only one outcome: If Reilly won't give us a sequel, then we can at least hope she won't make us wait too long for her next novel. Say hello to your new favorite fictional family. * Kirkus Reviews *
THIS BOOK IS INCREDIBLE! I can't remember the last time I read something that was so genuinely and uniquely funny. Thank YOU for sending this wonderful book my way. I look forward to talking about it with everyone I know!
I can't remember the last time I read a book that was as genuinely and uniquely funny as GRETA AND VALDIN. But it's also so much more than that. Reilly's voice is wise and full of life, and her observations about queer love, heartbreak, and the complexities of family are poignant without ever succumbing to sentimentality. This is a wholly original, laugh-until-you-ugly-cry-on-the-subway debut
Book Information
ISBN 9781529154191
Author Rebecca K Reilly
Format Hardback
Page Count 336
Imprint Hutchinson Heinemann
Publisher Cornerstone
Weight(grams) 445g
Dimensions(mm) 223mm * 145mm * 32mm
