Greta and Valdin

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Meanwhile, Greta’s new girlfriend, Ell, feels guilty Greta invited her to meet her parents – she can’t reciprocate. Greta says she doesn’t want anything anymore. She’s reduced to a “beautiful husk filled with opinions about globalism and a strong desire to go out for dinner”.

At the moment, for personal reasons, I don't like reading things about people being in love with each other.' —Valdin Among the young audience is Eoin McGlynn, a Year 12 student at Wakatipu High School. Eoin loves reading and writing short fiction and poetry and is excited to be volunteering this weekend alongside his mum Kendall: "From the moment I heard about the Queenstown Writers Festival, I was filled with anticipation. An event with the sole purpose of creating a forum for local creatives to share their work and learn from others in the field is such a wonderful idea." I’m sure the book’s popularity is to do with the characters’ rich social lives and their extended family unit which is tightly bonded and feels responsible for and to each other. But their truer tensions are never scratched. Greta and Valdin is a macaroon of a book appealing to an audience in a globalised woke psychosis. Greta and Valdinis a complete world. I was totally captivated. It is warm and funny, inventive and charming, with a genuine and earned tenderness at its heart.' —Kate Duignan, author of The New Shipsand Breakwater Most stories open with a clear beginning and close with a distinct ending which usually ties together as many narrative threads and plot points as the author chooses. Any events that took place before the events of the novel are related through varying states of exposition.

Learning

In a time when a single poem posted online can garner millions of views and catapult a poet to viral fame, we choke on its unimaginative ash I laughed, I cried, I cheered with Greta and Valdin. This is a novel that tastes like life Margaux Vialleron I can't remember the last time I read a book that was as genuinely and uniquely funny as Greta & 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." —Grant Ginder, author of The People We Hate at the Wedding Speaking of, “ An Open Letter to the Internet“ is a personal essay that contributed most to Hobart editor Elizabeth Ellen’s infamy. She describes a tension many writers fall into, the mode of ‘essayist’ overshadowing their fiction and/or poetry aspirations. Often the best essay writers fall into the form; despite Ellen’s efforts to evade non-fiction she is spurred on by the necessity to comment, providing a view she can’t see anyone else doing. In her Open Letter, she scrutinised allegationsagainst novelist Tao Lin by an ex-girlfriend he dated in her teens, when he was in his early twenties; Ellen refusedto accept the all-too-common mode of online degradation, and wrote, “[i]f this is anyone’s idea of gaining female empowerment, count me out. If celebrating the ruining of another person’s life is cause for celebration, I don’t want any part of it.” Tumblr girlies will remember the discourse” that accompanied this trend, writes Ash Davida Jane. Her Pantograph Punch piece last year, “ Golden Age of Online Poetry“, serves as a reminder of pointless “debates about the distinction between mythology and religion, and the ethics of writing about deities that don’t belong to you.” Needless to say, a demand of all poetry to virtuously toe the line, whether about Vishnu or asexuality, doesn’t help foster creativity.

With its beautiful prose and authentic frankness about the issues faced by today’s youth, Greta and Valdin is a must-read, and I’m sure Rebecca K Reilly’s future releases are awaited with bated breath. Valdin is still 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 only seems 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. I blink, trying to remember why I might need to say something. 'Um, no, I don't think there was anything else?' Just like Greta, I “know someone who has an art exhibition coming up,” dislike the employees at Unity Books, and frequent Xi’an Food Bar I have a jeweller friend who talks about the types of materials she likes to work with — primarily steel, copper and brass. She doesn’t use gold or precious stones. I think like that with words. I use the steel and copper and brass of language. They’re my materials and I love them and never tire of working with them.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, author of Our Wives Under the Sea Rebecca K. Reilly's exploration of love, family, karaoke, and the generational reverberations of colonialism will make you laugh, might make you cry, and will certainly make you fall in love with Greta, Valdin and all of the Vladisavljevics. The book follows the lives and loves of Greta and Valdin, alternating chapters between them as they try to navigate aforementioned crushes, and pining, but also worrying about their careers, and their relationships with other members of their family. To be honest, I didn't think I particularly liked either of them in the opening chapters but by the end I was cheering them both on as they try to find the stability, groundedness, and love that they both need to be happy. Rebecca K Reilly’s début novel, Greta and Valdin, is an exception to this rule in the best way. Rather than read like a self-contained narrative, the story feels almost like a segment of two lives. Events that took place before the novel begins are relayed through the two main characters and subtly interwoven into their mutual concern for each other. 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.

No one's ever said anything like that to me before. Matthew said my essay about Death in Venice was objectively fine. Holly said I have blue eyes, but I don't. The date said I had some strong opinions about kebabs. I wonder if people are having beautiful things said to them all the time, and I've just gone wrong somewhere. Delightful, funny, wonderful . . . I laughed my way through this book. An incredible novel from a young new writer. I heartily recommend it to everybody.' —Claire Mabey, Afternoons with Jesse MulliganGreta & Valdinis fresh, funny, tangled and brilliant. I can’t wait for someone to make the sitcom so I can keep Reilly’s characters in my life.' —Hannah Tunnicliffe, Kete Books I laughed, I cried, I cheered with Greta and Valdin. This is a novel that tastes like life." —Margaux Vialleron, author of The Yellow Kitchen Literature is a hard game. It’s hard to write, it’s hard to get published. What keeps you going as a writer? Reilly makes modern romance exciting and compelling in a way that reminded me of Sally Rooney. . . . Greta and Valdin is an amusing and vivacious romantic drama led by two hilarious and engaging queer main characters, and I don't think you could ask for much more from a novel in 2021.'—Josie Shapiro, ReadClose It’s very easy for young people to fall into this idealistic trap, being influenced by social justice rules in shallow ways fuelling misplaced rage. I’ve done it, you’ve probably done it—perception is reality—and it’s hard and confusing to figure out exactly what you think or believe, or how to behave, how to react to such situations or run away.