The Lightness

'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''

'Funny, whip-smart and transcendently wise' Jenny Offill

'The love child of Donna Tartt and Tana French'

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...