Diana Reid

Diana Reid’s novels are often compared to Sally Rooney’s but I think Reid is more enjoyable overall. Even when her characters act despicably, I love her writing and understand better what drives them. Seeing Other People is not specifically a COVID-19 novel, but rather a post-lockdown novel. It’s an opportunity to get out there, have fun and for each of the characters to decide if what they are chasing is what they really want.

For sisters Eleanor and Charlie, this summer is going to be full of change and drama. Eleanor’s boyfriend confesses to an indiscretion and her calm response is that they should break up. It doesn’t really mean a great deal, Mark wasn’t really the one anyway. Charlie is much more emotional than eternally calm Eleanor and falls in love with Helen. But does Helen feel the same way? It starts to get messy when Helen and Eleanor become friends, but withhold that from Charlie. In between are long parties, days at the beach and a summer Christmas. It turns out that the sisters are both holding secrets from each other, and when they are exposed, one after another, it will hurt them both.

I wouldn’t say either Eleanor or Charlie are characters you will love because of their flawed nature (and what’s more uncomfortable than the naked truth)? Eleanor likes to reorder the narrative to remove her faults and Charlie throws her whole being into everything, enjoying the drama. The sisters have their set roles – Eleanor, the wise older sister and Charlie, the younger sister who will never reach Eleanor’s heights of calmness and security. They relapse chronically into these roles, until the hurt of the lies between them destroys it. Even though it was really uncomfortable for the characters, I enjoyed the messiness of the drama; emotions, blunt words and fallout. The pair are both quite self-centered but claim (truthfully or not) to have only the other’s best interests at heart. It was quite refreshing to see characters behaving badly knowing that they will cause hurt and having to deal with the consequences. The feeling of Everything Related To Me Being Very Important self-centeredness of people in their twenties was perfectly captured, alongside some grand gestures about the world in general (and some excellent insights).

Reid writes characters that are fascinating without forcing judgement about their actions. The plot of Seeing Other People was also just the right speed of a hot, lazy summer – long moments that seem to last forever, followed by quick movements when the weather turns cool. She’s an author to watch and I look forward to her next novel, which is sure to be insightful when it comes to characters acting on the margins of their morals.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com… (meer)

This wasn't quite what I was expecting, and read more like YA fiction than suits me. The writing was very good, and there were some funny lines, but it all seemed a bit superficial and performative. I liked the fact that Michaela, the main protagonist, had a good relationship with her loving mother, but I think her mother was the only character I really identified with. There were interesting themes - consent, power dynamics in relationships etc - but I spent the book alarmed at how much alcohol was consumed daily (and how did Michaela afford it?), wanting to warn her that sleeping with your tutor never ends well. I am getting old...… (meer)

Although the names have been changed this is set in two of the Sydney University residential colleges; Women's and St Paul's. I found that my familiarity with the venues was distracting. Certainly its portrayal of the toxic male culture of St Paul's was fairly close to the bone. But that has changed for the better since the book was written in that St Paul's is now co-educational, and has made considerable efforts to get rid of the aforementioned culture.
The guts of the book is the relationship, part envy, between the two female characters.
I have nothing to add to the preceeding review by birdsam0610, which is excellent.… (meer)

Sometimes there are books that you kick yourself for letting linger on your shelf. Love & Virtue is one of those novels. I’ve read many comparisons to Sally Rooney, but to me this book is much stronger having toned down the emotion and dialled up the plot. It’s an amazing debut that would make a great TV series or film.

Love & Virtue comments on class and privilege in Australia as well as sexual consent, but never with a heavy hand steering the reader in one particular direction. It’s subtle and offers differing schools of thought on the matter from both the students and the university faculty. I wish I’d known that consent was handled so sensitively and eloquently earlier. (I think I was blinded by commentary in the media around the time the book was released and wasn’t keen on being bombarded in my reading life as well). The story is also the coming of age for Michaela, a student from a single parent family in Canberra, worlds away from the privilege and wealth of Sydney’s private schools. Michaela is on a full scholarship for the residential college, allowing her to live and eat without spending any money. She is somewhat ignorant of the other legacy of the residential colleges – a place to network and cement loyalty in the upper echelons for years to come. (To be fair, I had no idea either – I only had one friend who lived in a college as an undergraduate). The colleges are like boarding schools, without the strictness and with added alcohol. It’s about socialising and getting drunk, making friends and sharing the morning after. Michaela fits into the lifestyle with relative ease and a lack of jealousy about her friends’ ability to jet overseas at every break. She makes friends with both girls and boys, gets very drunk and goes to class.

But as with every university story, it’s much more complicated than that. Eve, who lives next door to Michaela, is both a friend and a rival. Michaela looks up to Eve’s strength and willingness to go against the flow with ideas and politics. Eve in turn can be dismissive of Michaela’s ideas or treat her like a pet. What starts as a friendship cools but turns to dislike after Eve discovers Michaela’s secret. This secret has more ramifications for someone else than Michaela, but it ruins a relationship (or perhaps just hastens its end). Plus, Eve knows about something that happened during O-week (that’s Orientation Week) that could devastate a lot of people and change their feelings towards Michaela, rightly or wrongly. It’s a form of perverse blackmail that has Michaela on edge to stop it before it makes national headlines. It also asks who has the right to tell a story if it isn’t their own.

There are multiple forms of consent taking place throughout the novel, not just sexual, but about experiences, class and privilege. It’s a complex story, but it really doesn’t feel that way until you’ve finished it. While reading, it’s engrossing, absorbing and sometimes eerily familiar. Diana Reid is a very accomplished debut novelist, with just the right amount of plot and themes centred around realistic characters. There’s none of the overstuffed first novel syndrome here. She just gets what life is like at uni (oh-so-complex at the time, but nothing compared to the real world) and creates a thought-provoking and engaging story. This is a great novel to read and discuss with others.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com… (meer)