Greta & Valdin

A Novel

By: Rebecca K Reilly

Narrated by: Natalie Beran, Jackson Bliss, Eilidh Beaton, Nico Evers-Swindell, Gary Furlong

Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

A New York Times Editors’ Choice

For fans of Schitt’s Creek and Sally Rooney’s Normal People, an irresistible and bighearted international bestseller that follows a brother and sister as they navigate queerness, multiracial identity, and the dramas big and small of their entangled, unconventional family, all while flailing their way to love.

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.

Sharp, hilarious, 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.

©2021 Rebecca K Reilly (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

Comfort read

I can see myself listening to this again in a couple years, it's very comforting. It reminded me that parents are their own people, and that my own troubles and joys can be personally felt, as well as shared, without me losing anything - I may even gain something by taking risks like being vulnerable, in love, in anger, even in confusion.

A must listen!

Hilarious and heartfelt story. Enjoyed the narration too! The family was the best part of the story.

strange narrating choices

I listened to the audio version of “Greta & Valdin” narrated by Natalie Beran, Jackson Bliss, Eilidh Beaton, Nico Evers-Swindell, and Gary Furlong. From the start I just wanted to listen to these two ridiculously self-involved, insecure, lonely, searching siblings. To add to the fun, both are queer and in search of love. Each chapter is narrated by one of the siblings, and I loved them both. Valdin’s parts were snarky and cleverly written. Greta tries to write some formulaic gauge of the compatibility of her lovers. It was fun listening to these 20-somethings.

They live in Auckland, New Zealand, and the accents are all the same. One narrator gave a shot at a quasi-Eastern European accent. One tried a Scottish. But seriously, I had no idea that there were that many narrators. I thought there was one male and one female, and they had no former Eastern-European Accent. I think Greta was in her teens when they moved, but I would still expect some sort of an accent.

Once I got over the Aussie/British accents, and just listened, I started to really care about these insecure siblings. Their whole family is eccentric, almost all gay. The family drama is like a soap opera, one that is irresistible!

This is billed as a great book for “fans of ‘Schitt’s Creek’ and Sally Rooney’s ‘Normal People’.” Author Rebecca K. Reilly used the silliness of “Schitt’s Creek” and Rooney’s brooding outlook of young adults. She upped the “Schitt’s Creek” antics with her international flair of characters.

I recommend this as a palate cleanser, because it defies genres and is just plain fun.

Extremely boring and goes nowhere

This book stood out to me in that there wasn’t really a well formed plot and the characters were truly not interesting at all. I would never recommend this book to anyone. The narrators were quite plain in their deliveries… I’ve read on some reviews that this book is “funny” so that did not come through with the audio version.