The Lightness: A Novel
Written by Emily Temple
Narrated by Brittany Pressley
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
""The Lightness could be the love child of Donna Tartt and Tana French, but its savage, glittering magic is all Emily Temple’s own."" —Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists
A Most Anticipated Novel by Marie Claire • Elle • WSJ. Magazine • Glamour • Vulture • Bustle • Buzzfeed • The Millions • The Philadelphia Inquirer • The Daily Beast • Refinery 29 • Publishers Weekly • Literary Hub • Electric Literature • and more!
A stylish, stunningly precise, and suspenseful meditation on adolescent desire, female friendship, and the female body that shimmers with rage, wit, and fierce longing—an audacious, darkly observant, and mordantly funny literary debut for fans of Emma Cline, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Jenny Offill.
One year ago, the person Olivia adores most in the world, her father, left home for a meditation retreat in the mountains and never returned. Yearning to make sense of his shocking departure and to escape her overbearing mother—a woman as grounded as her father is mercurial—Olivia runs away from home and retraces his path to a place known as the Levitation Center.
Once there, she enrolls in their summer program for troubled teens, which Olivia refers to as “Buddhist Boot Camp for Bad Girls”. Soon, she finds herself drawn into the company of a close-knit trio of girls determined to transcend their circumstances, by any means necessary. Led by the elusive and beautiful Serena, and her aloof, secretive acolytes, Janet and Laurel, the girls decide this is the summer they will finally achieve enlightenment—and learn to levitate, to defy the weight of their bodies, to experience ultimate lightness.
But as desire and danger intertwine, and Olivia comes ever closer to discovering what a body—and a girl—is capable of, it becomes increasingly clear that this is an advanced and perilous practice, and there’s a chance not all of them will survive. Set over the course of one fateful summer that unfolds like a fever dream, The Lightness juxtaposes fairy tales with quantum physics, cognitive science with religious fervor, and the passions and obsessions of youth with all of these, to explore concepts as complex as faith and as simple as loving people—even though you don’t, and can’t, know them at all.
Editor's Note
Book club pick…
Set in a “Buddhist Boot Camp for Bad Girls,” a teenage girl runs away from home, searching for her father who disappeared from a meditation retreat known as the Levitation Center. There, she joins a trio of friends determined to make their bodies defy gravity and levitate. Stylish and suspenseful, it’s like Emma Cline, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Tana French got together to conjure something wholly original. Emma Roberts selected “The Lightness” as her September 2020 Belletrist book club pick.
Emily Temple
Emily Temple was born in Syracuse, New York. She earned a BA from Middlebury College and an MFA in fiction from the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns fellow and the recipient of a Henfield Prize. Her short fiction has appeared in Colorado Review, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, Indiana Review, Fairy Tale Review, and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, where she is Managing Editor at Literary Hub. This is her first novel.
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Reviews for The Lightness
63 ratings5 reviews
What our readers think
Readers find this title to have a mix of positives and negatives. The narrator's performance is praised, as well as the dynamic between the main character and the trio. The premise of the novel is also enjoyed. However, some readers feel that the story lacks a satisfying climax and contains unnecessary tangents. Despite these criticisms, the book is still intriguing and keeps readers interested. It explores themes of need, spirituality, and female sexuality in a subtle way, while also incorporating elements of a thriller.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A book with surprising depth. The examination of need, spirituality and the force of female sexuality is pushed lightly along with elements of a thriller.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I don't think the book is bad per say. I just think it's alright. Pros: The narrator was great! I like that she had inflection and varied tones and voices for everyone. I enjoyed the dynamic between the main character and the trio. I liked the premise of the novel! That's what lured me in, in the first place. Cons: A lot happened but nothing happened at all. I felt like there was a build up to something but it was so anticlimactic when it actually happened. I know for certain I would not be able to read this book- I listened to the audiobook version. I wouldn't be able to finish because of all the tangents and random stories and tidbits, personally could have been cut out. Didn't add anything to the story for me. This book also didn't leave me with anything after it ended. I'm not moved in any way. I'm just like wow...this is it? That's what actually happened? The idea of this book is wonderful but the actuality of it is meh. I know life doesn't always have clean lines and neat endings but there were so many things that were skimmed over that I wish the author had delved into. Would have made more of an emotional impact. This novel had potential. I sort of wish that it had fallen into the obscure and fantastical instead of the main character growing up to be just another lonely jaded adult with "issues".
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I’m not sure how to feel about this. These girls made me so mad at times.. they risked so much, and for what? It was definitely a love-hate kind of thing with this book. Very intriguing story line and it kept me interested but I was left still wanting.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is a dark and moody coming of age story. Olivia’s father has disappeared, and she thinks the last known place her father was at a Buddhist retreat. Olivia heads up to the mountains for the teen girl camp. The dense, intellectual writing made this a hard book for me to get through.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Olivia goes to the Leviathian Center for a summer camp for problem teens trying to find her father who never returned from a session there. She falls in with a group of girls who have been there in the past. The leader, Serena, wants them to learn to levitate that summer. Will they?I found this story odd. It is a series of vignettes of her and her parents, her and her father, her and her mother, the time at camp, and her present as she looks back on her past as an adult. I have no preference which part of her life she revealed. Each part was interesting and kept me reading. There was a lot of drama in each part of her life. I am not sure that she is a reliable narrator since it is only her story. From what she tells us it seems parts of the story could have another side if told by a neutral narrator. It would definitely have a different spin if one of the other characters were telling it. There is a lot of freedom in her life and I do not believe it helped her to make good/smart choices. I have a feeling she would agree.