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The Lightness

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available
'A psychologically smart debut that swathes teen desire and friendship in mystery and mirth' Observer 'Like a twisted Malory Towers or maybe a cosmic version of 'Heathers'' Daily Mail 'Funny, whip-smart and transcendently wise' Jenny Offill 'The love child of Donna Tartt and Tana French' Chloe Benjamin 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, Olivia runs away from home and retraces his path to a place known as the Levitation Center. There, she enrolls in their summer program for troubled teens, a 'Buddhist Boot Camp for Bad Girls', and finds herself drawn into the company of a close-knit trio of girls determined that this is the summer they will finally 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... 'A beautiful meditation on meditation...populated with girls who refuse to act the way they're expected to; who have too much passion, too many feelings and nowhere to put them' New York Times 'A disquieting and astute reflection on desire, truth, friendship and the siren call of weightlessness' Daily Mail 'A darkly funny, luminously drawn mystery' Téa Obreht, author of Inland and The Tiger's Wife 'This remarkable novel is made up of equal parts desire and dread' Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You 'A bold, smart, hilarious new voice. A classic must read!' Mary Karr, author of Lit
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 20, 2020
      Temple’s engrossing debut, by turns smart thriller and nuanced coming-of-age story, is set in a high-altitude spiritual retreat known as the Levitation Center, rumored to occupy the only American land where levitation is possible. Olivia Ellis is 15 when her long-unreliable Buddhist father, John, who separated from her mother several years before, disappears from her life after attending a Center retreat. The following summer, Olivia signs up for the retreat’s residential program for teenage girls, hoping to find some clues as to John’s whereabouts. When the enigmatic resident Serena, whose friends Janet and Laurel sneak out nightly to visit her private tent on the mountainside, invites Olivia to join their group and announces that they will learn to levitate, Olivia is eager to belong and to master her father’s religion. Serena plies the girls with alcohol and coaxes guidance from Luke, the Center’s seductive young gardener, who she says has levitated before. By the time Olivia begins doubting Serena’s motives for encouraging dangerous methods, such as fasting and choking, events are spiraling beyond her control. While the frequent asides on fairy tales, etymology, and various intellectual concepts can feel distracting and distancing, the lush, intelligent prose perfectly captures the narrator’s adolescent yearning. Temple’s exploration of the power young women have over each other will appeal to fans of Susan Choi and Emma Cline.

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  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

Languages

  • English

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