About the Book:

After two years of lockdowns, there’s change in the air. Eleanor has just broken up with her boyfriend, Charlie’s career as an actress is starting up again. They’re finally ready to pursue their dreams—relationships, career, family—if only they can work out what it is they really want.

When principles and desires clash, Eleanor and Charlie are forced to ask: where is the line between self-love and selfishness? In all their confusion, mistakes will be made and lies will be told as they reckon with the limits of their own self-awareness.

Seeing Other People is the darkly funny story of two very different sisters, and the summer that stretches their relationship almost to breaking point. 

Published by Ultimo Press

Released October 2022

My Thoughts:

This was SO GOOD! I had wondered how Diana Reid would follow up Love and Virtue, her impactful debut from last year. Seeing Other People was such a different novel from her first, and that right there, is how you make a name for yourself. Think Sally Rooney, but distinctly Australian and definitely more…I don’t know… dare I say, relatable, even though I’m far from my twenties. Perhaps that’s the Australian vibe coming through that gives it that quality. Whatever it is, I loved it and couldn’t put this one down. I’ve already been recommending it far and wide before I’d even finished it!

“It seemed the saddest most obvious thing in the world – that people changed, and also didn’t.”

I love books about sisters. I am a sister and I love my own sister dearly. She is, without question, my biggest ally and most trusted confidant. This story is first and foremost about sisterhood, so there was its first big tick from me, but it was also about the other relationships in our lives: the ones with friends, parents, lovers – all of these important connections interwoven to make up our daily lives and how we go about living them. If you’re a fan of Australian television drama – think Offspring, Love My Way, The Time of Our Lives – then this novel had the same thematic overture that shows like that have.

Diana Reid is now an auto-buy for me. I love her work and look forward to seeing what she next has in store for us.