Greta & Valdin
A Novel
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Editors’ Choice • “A heartfelt portrait of a complex family.” —People • “Laugh-out-loud-funny.” —Harper’s Bazaar • “Quintessential rom-com meets the delicious family sprawl of a Russian classic.” —Vanity Fair
An irresistible, “generous, [and] tender” (The New York Times) international bestseller that follows a brother and sister as they navigate queerness, multiracial identity, and family drama, all while flailing their way to love—for fans of Schitt’s Creek and Sally Rooney’s Normal People.
It’s been a year since his ex-boyfriend dumped him and moved from Auckland to Buenos Aires, and Valdin is doing fine. He has a good flat with his sister Greta, a good career where his colleagues only occasionally remind him that he is the sole Maaori person in the office, and a good friend who he only sleeps with when he’s sad. But when work sends him to Argentina and he’s thrown back in his former lover’s orbit, Valdin is forced to confront the feelings he’s been trying to ignore—and the future he wants.
Greta is not letting her painfully unrequited crush (or her possibly pointless master’s thesis, or her pathetic academic salary...) get her down. She would love to focus on the charming fellow grad student she meets at a party and her friendships with a circle of similarly floundering twenty-somethings, but her chaotic family life won’t stop intruding: her mother is keeping secrets, her nephew is having a gay crisis, and her brother has suddenly flown to South America without a word.
Filled with “kernels of humor and truth” (Elle) and with an undeniable emotional momentum that builds to an exuberant conclusion, Greta & Valdin careens us through the siblings’ misadventures and the messy dramas of their sprawling, eccentric Maaori-Russian-Catalonian family. An acclaimed bestseller in New Zealand, Greta & Valdin is fresh, joyful, and alive with the possibility of love in its many mystifying forms.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
New Zealander Reilly debuts with a charming tale of two siblings reckoning with heartache and familial dysfunction. The novel begins as a comedy of errors. Valdin, who goes by V and has obsessive compulsive disorder, opens a package meant for his father, Linsh, mistakenly believing it's a book returned as an olive branch by his ex-boyfriend, Xabi. Meanwhile, V's sister, Greta, is ghosted by an internet date while on a trip to Wellington and ends up lost on a dark forest path. The siblings, who share an apartment in Auckland, have no shortage of complicated family dynamics (Linsh is Russian; their mother, Betty, is Māori; and Xabi is their uncle's Catalonian husband's brother). Greta, an English tutor and graduate student at the University of Auckland, pines for one of her colleagues, while V, a former astrophysicist turned TV travel show host, flies to Argentina on assignment, where he seizes a chance to connect with Xabi. Reilly drops in lots of Māori words and phrases, but does so in a manner that readers will find immersive rather than alienating, thanks in part to Greta's interest in learning what they mean. This offbeat millennial comedy has universal appeal. Agents: Jenny Bent and Martha Perotto-Wills, Bent Agency.
