Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist 2022
‘This! Was! So! Good! ... Diana Reid you are in a total league of your own.’ - Zara McDonald, Shameless Podcast
Charlie’s skin was stinging. Not with heat or sweat, but with that intense, body-defining self-consciousness—that sense of being watched. She lowered her eyes from Eleanor’s loving gaze. Her throat taut with tears, she swallowed. ‘You’re a good sister, Eleanor.’
‘Don’t say that.’
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.
About the Author
Diana Reid is a Sydney-based writer. Her debut novel, Love & Virtue, was an Australian bestseller and winner of the ABIA Book of the Year Award, the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year Award, the ABA Booksellers' Choice Fiction Book of the Year Award, and the MUD Literary Prize. Love & Virtue was also shortlisted for the Indie Debut Fiction Award, the ABIA Matt Richell New Writer Award, and Highly Commended at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. Diana was also named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist in 2022. Seeing Other People is her second novel.
Industry Reviews
'This! Was! So! Good! ... Diana Reid you are in a total league of your own.' -- Zara McDonald * Shameless Podcast *
'An extraordinary new voice in Aussie lit.' -- Zoe Foster Blake
'Reid is a young author to watch.' * Marie Claire *
'funny, clever and addictive' * Daily Mail UK *
'The prose sparkles on the page, as effervescent and drinkable as a glass of Prosecco on a warm summer's evening.' * The Australian *
'Diana Reid will be called the new Sally Rooney' -- Meg Mason
'Seeing Other People is another punchy and well-observed novel.' * The Guardian *
'Diana Reid's close third-person narration captures every gesture and thought, creating a strong sense of interiority for all her characters. She effortlessly documents the process of watching, the awareness of being watched, and the split-second analysis of social interactions. Like a more bubbly Sally Rooney, Reid's work is full of interactions and interconnections, sex and conversations, friends and family. Part romance, part social commentary and part family saga, Seeing Other People questions what we owe each other and what we owe ourselves.' * Books + Publishing *
'written in superb prose, this is the ultimate contemporary dramedy'
* InStyle *
'a story bathed in sisterhood and the oft complicated relationship sisters are forced to navigate.' * Russh *
'if you're heading to the beach and need a light, funny read, this book will deliver that for you.' * The Canberra Times *
'Seeing Other People will be the book of the summer.' * PedestrianTV *
'The snark is delicious, like the bright, citric fizz of popping candy. It's a welcome reprieve from the novels of middle-class malaise that have been so painfully fashionable of late' * Sydney Morning Herald *
'I enjoyed this funny, charming and enormously readable novel a great deal, in large part due to the wit and authenticity with which Reid represents her characters and their world.' * The West Australian *
'funny and engaging' * ArtsHub *
'Reid's witty and insightful social observation is something to relish' * ABC Radio National, The Bookshelf *
'We absolutely adored this hotly-anticipated novel' * The Shameless Bookclub *
'Snappy dialogue, sharp insights, interesting moral dilemmas and humour.' * Sydney Morning Herald *
'If you tore through Love & Virtue last year, you'll want to add Diana Reid's second novel to the top of your reading bucket list.' * Marie Claire *
