The Lightness

“A teen thriller in the vein of the ‘90s horror movie The Craft . . . A beautiful meditation on meditation . . . Frequently hilarious, and thoughtful.” —The New York Times Book Review

One year ago, the person Olivia adores most in the world, her father, left home for a meditation retreat and never returned. Yearning to make sense of his shocking departure and to escape her overbearing mother, Olivia retraces his path to a place known as the Levitation Center.

Once there, she enrolls in their program for troubled teens and finds herself drawn into the company of a close-knit trio of girls. 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 there’s a chance not all of them will survive.

Over the course of one summer, The Lightness explores the obsessions of youth, and concepts as complex as faith and as simple as loving people—even though you don’t, and can’t, know them at all.

“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 darkly funny, luminously drawn mystery.” —Téa Obreht, New York Times–bestselling author of The Tiger’s Wife

“Whip-smart and transcendently wise.” —Jenny Offill, New York Times–bestselling author of Dept. of Speculation