Books about friendship are not often described as love stories, but this is one. Nell Argall and Eve Bowman are both brilliant, odd and friendless. Traumatised in their first year of high school, their lives are changed forever when they meet. Set in Sydney over eighteen years, Chosen Family follows Nell and Eve as they grow into themselves, as they both love and destroy each other. From school, to university, to careers, to motherhood, Nell’s and Eve’s is a relationship that is a life-raft that is also a poison apple that is also a Medusan stare, frozen in time. Together, Nell and Eve are a double helix. Love, guilt, shame, joy, these emotions twist and turn between them. Can the wounds of adolescent betrayal ever really heal? Can we ever really understand what is going on in someone else’s head? And what’s love got to do, got to do with it? Written with Gray’s characteristic compassion, wit, and dark humour, Chosen Family is a modern classic for the ages.
