Tag: greta and valdin

Greta and Valdin is a literary novel about two queer siblings in New Zealand who attempt to navigate their complicated family and chaotic love lives. Greta and Valdin live together, with Valdin pining over his ex-boyfriend Xabi who left for Argentina once they broke up and Greta trying to deal with being an underemployed grad student with failed dating exploits and a girl who just seems to use her for help with work. Their Russian father and Maori mother—and their whole extended family—are eccentric in their own ways, but maybe Greta and Valdin can finally work out how to exist for themselves and still involve their family.

I’d heard this book hyped about, but wasn’t sure what to expect. From the opening pages, it was hilarious, and that really set the tone for me: I’m not used to literary fiction being this funny (there was one line in the book I had to stop and repeat to my partner because it was so good). At the same time, it is a book with complex interwoven messages about identity and queerness and family, particularly in the flexibility of what things mean to different people and how everyone forges their own sense of self and what their labels mean to them. The characters are endearing and messy, the kind where you are half-gripped to see what terrible decisions they make and half wanting to swoop in and save them from themselves.

The narrative is mostly around interpersonal relationships and character development, as you’d expect from literary fiction, and I liked the ending and the fact that it offered hope in a range of ways. The split perspective of the narration worked well to give you a sense of the similarities and differences between the siblings, and leave you fully entangled in their lives. I love the sort of literary fiction that feels fun, where there’s plenty of serious stuff in there and some interesting things to navigate and explore, but also you get ridiculous banter along the way. The sense of place was also a big selling point, as there’s a lot of culturally specific elements that feel very embedded into the book, and though I’m sure I didn’t get a lot of them first time around as I’ve never been to New Zealand, I appreciated it and the way the novel uses place for a family that might seem dislocated.

I didn’t know I needed literary fiction about messy queer siblings, but Greta and Valdin proved that I did. There’s a lot packed into a book that is both hilarious and quite touching, and it felt worth the hype to me.