Chosen Family

by Madeleine Gray

'Madeleine Gray writes so acutely about the mess of desire and the human condition.' Nigella Lawson

A sexy, romantic, queer, epic literary novel for all readers by the award-winning author of the internationally acclaimed bestseller Green Dot .

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?

' Clear your schedule for the all-consuming read.' Books+Publishing


‘I inhaled this book, holding my breath at passages that felt ripped straight from my high school diary in 2007.’ LUCINDA PRICE (@Froomes), author of All I Ever Wanted Was to Be Hot

‘Hilarious and devastating ... This book is everything to me.’ SIANG LU, Miles Franklin-winning author of Ghost Cities

Genres: Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Contemporary, Lesbian, Book Club, Audiobook

Audible Audio

Expected publication January 29, 2026

About the author

Madeleine Gray is a writer and critic from Sydney. Her first novel, Green Dot, was an international bestseller. Her second novel is Chosen Family. She has an MSt in English from the University of Oxford and a PhD in feminist literary theory from the University of Manchester.

Reviews

[Tom Murdoch · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, this book did irritate me.

However, I was irritated insofar as I was challenged to think beyond my own, perhaps rudimentary, queer experiences.

Gray is a fun writer and I always enjoy her prose (it can be a bit verbose at times). I don’t love the constant pop culture references, as I feel it takes you out of the moment, but that’s just me (I would also argue some of the language choices used in the 2008-2014 chapters were anachronistic and needed editing).

Ultimately the core characters are extremely frustrating and flawed, and I struggled to root for them making objectively manic decisions (and frankly they often acted out of indulgence, not queer altruism as they would purport).

Also, I hate hate HATE the trope of young, naive people having babies because “they know they’ll do it better”. So that bothered me, but also challenged me to listen and consider to their perspectives concerning family dynamics and queer love. Ultimately it’s a neat love letter to the queer community and for that I guess I enjoyed it.

[❋ Booked Out Today ❋ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray
★★★★★

Nell and Eve’s friendship is decades long and is full of love, heartbreak, and unspoken longing. Bound by loyalty and complicated affection, they navigate growing up, identity, and the blurred lines between friendship and family.

Let me check something! I’ve read 80 books already in 2025. THIS HAS BEEN MY FAVOURITE READ OF THE YEAR! I am so blown away by Madeleine’s craft in composing a heartfelt, funny and captivating story.

The book constantly pulled me back in every single time. It was like the little plot twists were perfectly placed in the story to keep it going. I lost a whole night of sleep because I just couldn’t put this down. So girl you owe me a full night rest tonight. But I’ll probably be up tonight thinking about the ending now!

This book was so relatable as a mother. I connected with so many ideas and themes in this book. I felt connected with Eve and only really understood Nell’s character in the final chapter.

I usually find books that switch timelines difficult to navigate. This was controlled perfectly. Switching back to time at the right moment, pulling everything together nicely.

I laughed so hard about Lake’s artwork. That scene is the funniest thing I’ve ever read. I’m not even joking. I have Green Dot sitting on my shelf and I can’t wait to devour that now.

I am swept away by how heartfelt and amazing this story was. I’ll be telling everyone I know to read this.

👶🏼🍷🎨📝

Thank you to @netgalley for a copy of this book.

💭 What’s your favourite read for 2025 so far?

Pour a hot drink, it’s book talk time.
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[suzannah ♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh how STUNNING. although this has completely broken me. perhaps my favourite read of the year????

[Holly Pedler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow this book is irritating! The main characters are incredibly unlikable, it’s full of unrealistic, cringy dialogue and the timeline jumping is annoying especially when we have to read about high school drama. The whole scenario of Eve and Nell having a baby together and platonically co-parenting while Nell is completely in love with Eve and never says anything just didn’t feel real at all. I would’ve given this two stars but added an extra one for the beautiful cover design.

[chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

what an intense homoerotic friendship in adolescence will do to a dyke 😔 lowkey this is a lesbian horror novel!! enjoyed this quite a lot! i enjoyed the writing style and the alternating timelines between the chapters and the exploration of queer family dynamics and of course, what it means to have a chosen family. but at the root this was also genuinely quite horrific and distressing in relation to the dynamic between eve and nell. like lesbians can be scary as fuck!

[Emily Michele Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ahhhh. I didn’t really know what to expect with this one. Just blindly went in because I knew it would be good.
Madeline has done it again… Written a book with characters I thoroughly dislike, a story I find incredibly frustrating and for the most part far from enjoyable. But somehow I still really enjoyed the reading experience. It was an easy read and I feel like such an insane amount of content fit into such a normal sized book.
I don’t think Madeline sets out to write books with loveable characters… (going off her last book), but I do think she is a great storyteller. It was really refreshing to read something abit different.

Torn between 3-4 stars…
4 star reading experience of a 2-3 star story hahaha

[Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was my first DNF of the year. I really wanted to love this book. And while I certainly didn’t hate it, I found my feelings about it came in ebs and flows. I loved the relationship between the 2 main characters, Eve and Nell to begin with, and the hook question (“What did Eve do to make Nell leave?”) kept me turning the pages. However, I found the dialogue between the girls as teenagers/young adults to be too unrealistic. While hindsight makes us all insufferable in early adulthood (insert personal cringe here), I found their dialogue too Dawson’s Creek-esque mixed with Sally Rooney’s style. I wanted more clumsiness out of the characters in that age bracket and more relatability. Think more Hannah Horvath and her friends in Girls.

That being said, I would still recommend it to those who enjoy novels by Meg Mason and Sally Rooney. It wasn’t a hard pass but rather a “not for me”.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

So beautifully crafted, Chosen Family is a love letter to the queer community and what it means to grow into one’s self. I devoured this novel, the characters and Normal People esque plot… everything about it. Giving this anything below 5 stars would be a disservice. Do not miss this one when it comes out!!

[Annie Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Feels a slightly unfair rating as I did enjoy the plot, but the feeling I left this book with was frustration - the dialogue was really lacking for me which took me out of the story, especially because of how reliant the book was on it. There were moments of great insight into the characters but broadly I felt like I didn’t really understand them. I did love the visceral setting in Sydney’s queer scene, especially being away from home, but not enough to redeem the book!

[Chiara Osborn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learnt three things from reading this book:

Every all girl high school experience from 2008-2012 was the same, from trying to kiss your best friend to being worried about your pubes during a swimming carnival.

The best way to ask if someone is a lesbian is, “Are you licking the light fantastic?”

And if you love someone…probably just tell them for goodness sake.

[Emily Conaghan 🐛 · Rating 5 out of 5]

It must be pretty exciting for Madeleine Gray to write two books and then for me, Emily, to rate them both five stars!

[Meghan Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Chosen Family by Madeline Gray is a tender, sharp, and deeply validating exploration of love, friendship, and the messy work of becoming yourself.

This novel captures something rarely articulated so honestly: the quiet, life-shaping power of chosen family. Gray writes with a clarity that feels both intimate and disarming, illuminating the ways friendships can sustain us, disappoint us, and ultimately shape who we are just as profoundly as romantic relationships ever could.

The characters feel achingly real—flawed, loving, selfish, generous, and painfully human. Their connections unfold in ways that mirror real life: through small moments, miscommunications, shared meals, emotional messes, and the slow realisation that love doesn’t always look the way we’re taught it should. Gray’s prose is understated but emotionally precise, trusting the reader to sit with discomfort, longing, and growth rather than tying everything up neatly.

What makes Chosen Family truly special is its emotional honesty. It doesn’t romanticise friendship or queerness; instead, it honours them in all their complexity. It’s a book about learning how to show up, how to let people change, and how to choose each other again and again—even when it’s hard.

This is a novel for anyone who has ever found home in people rather than places. Quietly powerful, beautifully observed, and deeply affirming, Chosen Family is a book that lingers long after the final page.

This novel broke me, put me back together and then broke me all over again. It’s definitely a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read for me 🫶🏼

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an example of why you should give authors a second chance. When I read Green Dot, I hated the characters and the plot, but really enjoyed the writing. I did not think I would read another one of Gray’s books, but the lesbian plot line intrigued me and I am SO GLAD i picked this book up! It’s only January, but this is a strong contender for my favourite book of the year. In the first half, my heart broke for Eve, and in the second half my heart broke for Nell. Like literally heart broken for her. I would’ve loved a bit more of a resolved ending, but I am going to choose that they finally lived happily ever after. While I think Gray’s writing is so clever and witty, I also love that she can portray an emotion so vividly - some of my favourite examples are “Eve feels like if she’s grieving anything, it’s the mother she never had rather than the person who just died” and “It’s like a police officer coming to your front door and instead of telling you your child is dead they instead inform you that they’ve found a wallet full of wash and it’s yours.”

[EmG ReadsDaily · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘And why is it that the things we really mean are usually the hardest to put into words?’

[Sammi · Rating 4 out of 5]

lesbians that can’t communicate are my favourite kind of lesbians! loved this for its inwards look at queer family and queer spaces (and lovely to have them be in sydney). Gray is a great writer, and I liked this even more than Green Dot. Chosen Family is filled with great references, Newtown locations and relationship dynamics that felt very real even though I wanted to shake Eve and Nell by the shoulders.

[Julie Garner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished this heartbreaking, beautiful, coming of age novel from Madeleine Gray and I found I am still wiping tears from my cheeks.
As with Green Dot, I love her quirky, modern day writing style which sometimes goes over the head of this just past 50 year old 🤣.
Be prepared to fall in love with her characters, seriously dislike her characters and ache for her characters. These people, if not already your people, will become your people.
Chosen Family is exactly as it sounds. It’s about finding yourself and surrounding yourself with people who know you and love you anyway. It is about building and growing your community through the laughs, loves and the hard times. It’s the nitty gritty of life with some extra thrown in.
Eve, Nell, Lake, Markus and Tae, we love you and welcome you to our world 💕

[Brittney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tw: Gosford mention

2.5 ⭐️

[Nadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

MB Review:

It is what it says on the tin. Best friends Eve and Nell, rejecting normative parental ideals, coparent a child together, but Nell is no longer in the picture. From childhood they understood each other in that way that good friends do, seeing right through to you, but shame and outside influences create a friction that’ll follow them throughout their lives. This equally funny and heart-wrenching novel is about chosen families, how we hide ourselves from the ones we love, and how those who see us can create or destroy us. A perfect summer read for the self-proclaimed ‘Thought Daughter.’

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this in like 2 days (I am a slow reader lol, this is big for me). Madeline’s writing is so in the now, I feel like I can see the characters on the street.

The high school flashbacks have strong reminders of what being a bit of an awkward teen was like.

I like how I didn’t have to wait long from Green Dot to Chosen Family, selfishly I am curious for the next release!

[Hannah Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 3.5 stars

This was a real page turner, I absolutely flew through it and was dying to know what happened next. I do love a book about people behaving badly and this was that, the high school experiences felt extremely real and relatable. The thing I had an issue with was the language and subject matter the teenage versions of themselves were using in their dialogue but if I frame it to myself that Eve is an unreliable narrator and that’s just her retelling the events I can forgive it. Messy dynamics is what this book really nailed for me

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok start, but the book quickly became predictable and frustrating. It tried too hard to be woke and current, with forced references that felt unauthentic. Eve became increasingly unlikeable and manipulative, the character dynamics felt uncomfortable, and the ending was unsatisfying. Overall, a disappointing read that didn’t live up to its potential.

[Niali Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved this! Super easy to read. Buuuut I think having loved it so much, I found myself being quite nitpicky while reading. Mostly because it was so close to being a perfect amazing book !!
1. where is the quick witted current writing I fell in love with in Madeleine’s first book?! Maybe it was a character choice to not be as cutting through the eyes of Eve but eek a lot of references and moments fell a littleee flat. Green dot felt SO fresh, whereas this defs felt quite …. I hate to say it but …. millennial. Again the characters were in uni in 2012 so TOTALLY could be and probably is a stylistic choice. But I guess I thought green dot writing was just Madeleine’s thing when it was just a green dot thing.
2. which leads me to…. why did the queer references in particular feel so shoe horned ??? I swear in Madeleine’s first book they felt completely lived in and authentic. I think this story as a whole was an incredible exploration of the queer experience but some moments I felt like we got a bit lazy and needed lean into the whole show don’t tell kind of mindset.
3. I swear people didn’t talk like that in 2012 hahahahah them having full gay internet lingo pre instagram even is taking me out
4. I know the whole point was for Nell to be mysterious, but she’s literally a main character and I know nothing about her. I know we learn a lot more later on but her character needed some serious fleshing out earlier in the story.
5. I feel for Eve but why is she SO fucking insufferable oh my god get a grip girl
6. Was a little disappointed with the ending, kinda felt like she didn’t know how to finish it
INCREDIBLE BOOK had me so locked in I think I read most of it in 2 days
Apologies for long review but needed to get this out of my system 🤓

[Lucia St Leon · Rating 2 out of 5]

characters felt flat, descriptions of characters relied heavily on stereotypes. maybe my review reflects a personal preference for novels that adventure further within the inner life, which I didn't see much of throughout the novel.

[elbow ☆ · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars
what the fuck. madeleine gray you'll be hearing from my lawyers (and my therapist).

while i was reading this book, there was a question swirling over me the entire time. each flashback and forward only exacerbated my curiosity as to what happened? as i got closer and closer to the end, it slowly became clear and then i wanted to die.

while reading about nell and eve's early friendship, i was struck by the similarities between it and my own friendship experience in years 8 and 9. it seems that being ousted from a trio in year 9 with little-to-no explanation is a canon event... though the situations weren't identical, i was slightly freaked out by how represented i felt.

then, as eve went to uni and began exploring the world, i felt hopeful and excited - for her, and for myself. i am about to start university after all! true, i'm not going to university in sydney in 2014, but eve definitely had some experiences that i aspire to in my future.

and then shit hit the metaphorical fan!! what the hell!!

the closer i got to the end of this book, the more verbal exclamations i made. i was acutely aware of the dwindling number of pages, equally curious and terrified for how gray was going to tie this story together.

also, this was completely hilarious! i found gray's writing really funny in green dot and this certainly didn't disappoint. i particularly enjoyed lake's dialogue - having babysat children in recent times, i can attest to 7 year olds being capable of understanding neoliberalism. while at times i found references and language used somewhat anachronistic, i was a child in the 2010s so literally what would i know. take that with a grain of salt.

i'm going to force so many people i know to read this. an absolutely devastating, funny and lovely book.

[nina.reads.books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray was my first read of 2026 and I wish I could say I loved it but unfortunately it didn’t fully work for me.

The book is about Eve and Nell who become friends in high school at an all-girls school where neither fit in. They have a falling out over Eve’s sexuality and Eve goes on to find herself and her tribe at university. Nell falls back into Eve’s life and they pick their friendship back up. After a tragedy Eve decides that she wants to have a child and asks Nell to co-parent with her as friends. The book moves between high school, early days of university and then the process of having the baby and then post Nell leaving.

What I liked:

💫 The portrayal of deep friendship especially in those fraught teenage years where you are finding your sense of self and a close friend that just gets you makes all the difference. Conversely Gray’s depiction of what happens when that friendship breaks down was horrifyingly real and took me back to high school.

💫 The whole “chosen family” “finding your tribe” vibe of early adulthood. I loved the share house days when Eve and Nell with Tae and Marcus spend all their time together, getting drunk, staying up late and philosophically breaking down their lives. This time was also a beautiful depiction of diversity and acceptance.

What I didn’t vibe with:

💫 Eve was such an unlikeable character. In the latter part of the novel, she was particularly mean and manipulative towards Nell and I couldn’t reconcile how this relationship just kept going when both women had such strong feelings and yet never addressed them head on.

💫 The timelines move all over the place which I know was by design to allow the story to unfurl in a particular way but I did find it a bit confusing.

💫 The ending seemed so unlikely to me considering how the events had played out.

So verdict? This was an ok read. I like how the author writes but I think I struggle with her characters. Enjoyed the first two thirds but didn’t like where the story and Eve’s character in particular went in the last third.

I see this getting lots of love though so do still give it a go as you may love it!

[Shon · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5*)
Okay...

I won't lie, I battled a little with this one. After not finishing an audiobook version of Madeleine Gray's 'Green Dot' due to getting frustrated by the decisions made by the main character, I was expecting a similar issue to arise when I got to the struggles of the characters... Boy, was I wrong.

Although parts of this story were like watching a lesbian dumpster fire, I loved the story. Love and loss is complex and being young, while working out your place in the world, then encountering some of life's nasty sides... I feel for Eve during the entire first half, but then develop a disdain for her and her actions (poor Nell). I still felt like a lot of the problems the characters encountered would have been resolved if they JUST TALKED ABOUT IT. But this feeling fizzled out quicker than I expected.

I ended up really really enjoying the structure, the story moving along while moving between the time lines.

Madeline Gray has for sure brought my interest back.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating 3.5. Review to come!

[Ella Scacchia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started strong but didn’t really enjoy where it went

[Josie Cross · Rating 5 out of 5]

i devoured this

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️
Loved it! Second book read from this author and was my favourite out of the two. An easy read with a complicated but beautiful story.