When people ask me for a light or heartfelt recommendation, I’m genuinely stumped. Maybe I’m a bitter, jaded queen, or maybe the lit world just doesn’t prioritize stories of queer joy (we can unpack that another time). Regardless, I can officially say that I have 1 (one) such book in my back pocket, and it’s this month's Gay Writes pick — Greta & Valdin, by Rebecca K. Reilly !

The novel splits its narrative between two queer, mixed-race Māori-Russian-Catalonian siblings living in Auckland, NZ. There’s Greta, a young PhD student with a possibly pointless thesis and a laundry list of unrequited crushes; and her brother Valdin, a physicist-turned-TV-travel-show-host (breakups are wild, y’all) who’s sent to Argentina for work where, ain’t that a coincidence, his ex now lives.

It’s a near impossible task to make me laugh (out loud!) and sob (out! loud!!) in the same novel, but with dry humour and whip-smart dialogue, Rebecca constructs a refreshing and distinctly New Zealand take on contemporary queer fiction. This is one of those books that’s less plot and more vibes, but it’s careening energy pulls us through clumsy romances and eccentric relatives to paint a deeply relatable portrait of millennial life, cultural identity, and the search for belonging.