The Lightness: A Novel

The Lightness by Emily Temple is a beautifully written book. The prose is intelligent, witty, gripping, and will challenge you to think about female relationships, how we relate to our parents, and how we carry trauma from our adolescence with us into our adult lives. This isn't a "breezy beach read," as some reviewers commented on. This is a serious novel that happens to center on a teenage narrator, though it moves between a summer spent at a Buddhist camp for young women and a 30ish narrator reflecting back on that transcendent summer. Layered on top of a suspenseful plotline with deeply fleshed out characters are meditations on Buddhism, religion, spirituality and the female experience. Frankly, I find it insulting when novels by young women are compared to teenage movies like The 90's cult hit theCraft - (check yo'self NY Times review). Women's experiences and female stories are rich and beautiful and don't need to be compartmentalized for general audience so they can view them as significant only in comparison to a book like Donna Tart's "Secret History." Yes, this novel revels in some similar mysteries, but it shines on its own. I digress. This is the best novel I have read all year and I have read many while in quarantine. It challenged me. I thought about it for weeks after reading it. I wanted to underline the beautiful prose and come back to it. Emily Temple is a new writer that will be in the public eye for many years to come. I highly recommend this book.

This novel took me by storm, for better or for worse. I finished it hardly moments ago at my office desk, and now I’m trying to compartmentalize my feelings and reactions, as well as my drawbacks and questions. It is not a perfect book. I will say that. Although, no story will ever be just right for anyone. It is simply not their story to tell, the author alone holds that right. But by means of publishing and producing these works, a story will at once belong to the readers, because they will experience it in a very different light. Here is mine. Olivia is a peculiar character, her struggles not unlike those of most girls her age. Her voice is unique, though she does drone on and on about insignificant things at times. I do love layered works, but this can also be easily overdone. However, I still enjoyed the core story structure and the historical/analytical/dissertation-like tidbits scattered throughout the book. I loved Laurel the most. I grew very fond of her, perhaps because she reminds me of myself. Janet and Serena, and Luke-most of all, had their own downfalls when it came to character. But Laurel felt the most visceral and vulnerable in her hardened state, even when Olivia wasn’t looking. And of course, the spiritual aspects. I do not practice Buddhism myself. However, I practice witchcraft, and therefore integrate meditation, astral projection, and many other forms of bodily escape into my practice. I read tarot cards, and I’ve felt the healing power of crystals. And maybe, just maybe, this helps in enabling me to understand the girls and their want for something more. The meticulous art of levitation (No, I have never levitated myself while meditating. But it often feels as though I am). In other words, I did enjoy the religious and spiritual aspect to this book, not only because of my own background-but also because you don’t often see it written quite like this. Sharp, witty, darkly comical, and educational. It was a new experience, to say the least. In the end, I came away from this story with questions about myself. Why I am the way I am, why I do what I do. I think some of the best books will split you open and shed a new light on the person you are, the one you’re still getting to know everyday. It was a painfully beautiful book, slow at times, but filled with sharp-tounged characters that you think you know. But maybe you don’t. And it goes without saying that that’s one of the most fascinating things of all. We might not even know others, our friends or even our family. At least, not in the way that they see themselves. But for all our natural human transformation and transcendent energy, maybe that’s how things are supposed to be. Maybe that’s where we begin.

The Lightness by Emily Temple is a recommended meditative novel on dysfunctional adolescent female friendships at a "Buddhist Boot Camp for Bad Girls." Olivia adored her father so she was heartbroken when he went to a meditation retreat in the mountains, became Buddhist, and left his family. He disappeared from her life, leaving her with her volatile mother. She manages to follow her father's steps, attending the same Buddhist retreat, a high-altitude spiritual retreat known as the Levitation Center, during the summer camp for teen girls. Olivia ends up having a trio of girls who are returning campers led by Serena, with followers Janet and Laurel, befriend her. Serena, who has special privileges, directs the others in questionable and even dangerous activities in the pursuit of enlightenment with the goal of learning to levitate. This is a dark, moody coming-of-age novel on female friendship, angst, adolescent desires, passions, obsessions and religious zeal. The power teens can have over each other's actions and beliefs is explored. The dense intelligent prose lends a fevered dream-like quality to the narrative. The world created here is insular, and the group of girls seems separate from other, normal societal expectations. The character of Olivia is eventually well-developed, but the journey to get to the answers became tedious at times. In some ways the denseness of the prose overwhelms the story, leaving the reader to expect much more from the secret hinted at revelations than those that are revealed. There is plenty of foreshadowing that ultimately was a letdown because I had pretty much figured out what was going to happen. In the end this is a story of angsty, hormonal teenage girls who are unreliable narrators searching for power and belonging at a Buddhist camp. I'm not the target audience for this one as I tired of it rather quickly. It could be due to the current tension-filled reality which overshadows most fiction. Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins

this novel really resonated with my interest in spiritual practices, self-awareness and relationship dynamics, with a suspenseful twist. beautiful language with a unique writing style. I look forward to the author next adventure.

Wonderful book. An interesting look at family relationships, friendships, and coming of age. Set in a non traditional summer camp setting, very entertaining

First of all, let me start by saying that the writing style is wonderful, exactly what I’m drawn to, so top marks there. For me, though, that’s kind of where it ends. It felt like the book was trying so hard to be something, but it just fell flat. No one was particularly relatable and the promised apex just never appeared, the book was all promised build up and sudden denouement, though how that happened when nothing really happened as such is beyond me. I wanted something unforeseen to happen, I suppose, the promised magic to appear. It never really did.

This book is so terrible. So slow and the story is so silly filled with an annoying protagonist. Do not waste your money on this.