I don't know how Greta and Valdin showed up on my TBR, but I'm so glad I listened to the audiobook from Libro.fm. I put it off for a while because I confused this cover with the cover for Manhunt, which is a post-apocalyptic horror, and I wasn't quite in the mood for a heavy book. Looking back, they have a similar hanging fruit theme but completely different colors and vibes. Not sure how my brain confused the two. This novel is brightly comical, overflowing with voice, which I think lends itself well to audio.

Greta and Valdin is literary fiction bursting with queer characters. It's also an intergenerational drama. The story follows a sister and brother who are the novel's namesake and who live together in New Zealand. They are quirky characters who are both moving through transitions in their lives. Greta is finishing up a master's degree in Soviet-era Russian and German literature — admittedly not a degree in high demand — all while falling in and out of love with women in her life.

We meet Valdin after a series of life-changing events. He was publicly nonverbal because of his OCD. He overcame this challenge after meeting the love of his life and gaining the confidence to speak outside of the safe environment of his home. Unfortunately, they separated when Valdin collapsed into himself like a dying star but couldn't understand why until he realized he really didn't want to finish his PhD in astrophysics. By the time he sorts himself out, his love has run away to Argentina to live on a farm and raise goats.

All this has already happened when we meet our intrepid heros. Valdin is now an internet personality on a show that spins a wheel to give him a random amount of money to go have adventures in different cities around the country. It works because Valdin has a habit of getting himself into strange and hilarious situations.

We follow Greta as she gets her heart broken and then earnestly tries to puzzle out her love life. Valdin ponders his life choices and his regrets, all while navigating his OCD and how it shapes his life, often against his will. Then he learns that the show is going overseas to Argentina, and he's forced to confront his regrets and reconnect with his ex-boyfriend, whom he still loves.

Greta and Valdin both have a tongue-in-cheek manner and oddball sense of humor. Their quirky internal dialogues hold the story together as they move through complex family dynamics. Usually, intergenerational dramas have a hefty helping of angst, but Greta and Valdin skirts this while tackling mental health struggles and intergenerational trauma from multiple angles. They uncover family secrets and dig deep to figure out what they want out of life, each other, and their chaotic Maaori-Russian-Catalonian family.

I felt like I needed a corkboard and reams of red string to track the relationships between people by blood, marriage, love, friendship, or sex. The authors' note at the beginning of the book prepped me for this problem with a short but helpful paragraph of the players and their relationships. It's slightly less helpful when it's an audiobook, and I'm too lazy to go back and re-listen to the note, so instead I trusted the process (and context clues) to lead me down the straight and narrow.

We spend a significant amount of time inside our two characters' heads, splashing through their often funny and often satirical thought processes. This might sound boring, but trust me, they are witty and self-deprecating enough for this to be a rollicking good time, assuming you enjoy this kind of literary endeavor. There were numerous times I laughed out loud, including one when I couldn't stop laughing at a comical misreading of the term 'daddy.' It was refreshing to read a drama like this where everyone likes each other even if they don't understand each other.

If you enjoy comical literary fiction overflowing with queer characters without the trauma of overt homophobia while still tackling important issues like racism, social justice, mental health, and OCD, then this is the book for you. Also, if you love accents as much as I do, then definitely get the audiobook. I could listen to the narrators talk for days. (～￣▽￣)～

/rae/