Chosen Family cover art

Chosen Family

Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Chosen Family

By: Madeleine Gray
Narrated by: Madeleine Withington
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $26.99

Buy Now for $26.99

About this listen

'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?

'Warning: 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

Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Women's Fiction World Literature Funny Witty
All stars
Most relevant
Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray
When I saw 'Chosen Family' on NetGalley, I recognised the author from 'Green Dot', a book club pick that is still on my TBR pile. However, I knew it had been well-received by the bookstagram crew, and I'd also seen some fun publicity videos, so I requested it.

Chosen Family is described as "A sexy, romantic, queer, epic literary novel for all readers." It does contain some fairly vivid sex scenes, so if that's not your thing, this book might not be for you.

Chosen Family explores the complex friendship between Eve and Nell, two brilliant yet awkward loners who meet at a private girls' school and bond over a traumatic experience in the gym locker. Set against the backdrop of Sydney over the course of eighteen years, the story navigates themes of love, guilt, and when your best friends become your chosen family.

The characters are sometimes likeable, sometimes dislikeable, sometimes funny, sometimes messy and sometimes toxic.

Thank you, NetGalley and Simon & Schuster (Australia), for the ARC. Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray is out now.

A solid Thumbs up 👍 I'm moving Green Dot up my TBR pile.

Body Count = Telling would be a spoiler.

@madeleine_gray_ @simonschusterau @NetGalley
#NetGalley #thumbsup👍 @simonschusterau #simonschusterau #booksdeevaareads #2025bookshelf #deevaasbookshelf #booknerd #CreativeLife #goreadabook #allthebooks #Bookstagram #DesignInspiration #newrelease #Designer #murdermystery #acosymystery #GraphicDesign #DesignNerd #designdeevaa #Bookstagram #TBRList #Bookish

A solid Thumbs up 👍

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Original story that hasn’t been explored. Lesbian focused. Descriptive of complex emotions. Thought provoking and worthy of discussion.

The best

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.