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Emily Temple

Autor(a) de The Lightness

14+ Works 205 Membros 8 Críticas

Obras por Emily Temple

The Lightness (2020) 172 exemplares
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Associated Works

Fairy Tale Review: The Mauve Issue (2015) — Contribuidor — 7 exemplares

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Membros

Críticas

I heartily agree with the reviews that compare "The Lightness" with books such as "The Girls" by Emma Cline and "Catherine House" by Elisabeth Thomas. This novel is one of those written in heady, saturated prose about young girls, their bodies, their desires, and the many relationships they build with family, friends, religion, and beliefs. Although I didn't end up loving the book as much as I hoped I would, I feel really compelled to say a couple things. (minors spoilers for the rest of the review)

First, Temple is a truly talented writer. Her writing submerges the reader into a richly woven world, and I was practically drooling over some of the sentences. I would read more by Temple simply for this! On the downside, there are also so many rambling moments that, while written nicely, just took me right back out of the book and made reading feel like a chore. The main character, Olivia, often waxes about theological concepts and ideas, Buddhist tales, and other topics, and while some were interesting I think overall it made the book less impactful, more difficult to tell what direction the book was taking. Although from the start it seems like a journey for a father and self-discovery, it then turns into an array of other plots and ideas to the point where I wasn't sure what I was reading. Again, these bits are written so nicely, but pingpong all over the place and don't always add to the plot.

Secondly, I kind of wish the phrase "meditation on female friendship" wasn't being used to market this book. While the relationship the main female characters have in the novel could sort of be called "friendship", it's not a good one, and I was ultimately disappointed with the fact that NONE of the girls had a healthy, lasting friendship with each other. There was so SO much potential for it! I kept thinking two particular girls were going to last in their friendship but even that was ripped away. One of the early quotes from the book is this:
“Girls love to be unlike other girls, because of the lies we are told about what other girls are like.”
Such a great line, and I assumed the characters in this book were going to overcome that girl-on-girl hate that embeds itself way too much in girls minds. But Temple took the story in another direction, one that is much more sad. I feel like what is being said by the author and what is being done by the characters is just so contradictory that both parts ended up falling flat.

(bigger spoiler warning in this paragraph)
Third, there was some stuff that got excused that I don't think should have. The big thing is Oliva's mother and her child abuse. Young Olivia is constantly beaten by her mother, and this obviously causes Olivia a lot of physical and mental pain. But at the end of the book, Olivia's mom says, "I'm sorry for hitting you so much. It was what I needed at the time." And that's it. Olivia and her mom are back to being friends, and Olivia later decides that "Love may be uglier than worship, but at least is has bones, fingernails, and skin. At least is can reach back to touch you. At least it braids your hair, even if it tears your scalp in the process." That's not love, but this book pushes the idea that a parent being physically abusive is okay and just a demented sort of tough love. Her mother saying "it's what I needed" is SO problematic and never truly addressed. The fact that Olivia ends up going back to her abuser like that was hugely disappointing.

Finally, I just ended up feeling so cheated! The book starts off with the promise of a shocking twist and lots of suspense - but there just isn't. Literally every couple chapters Olivia (who is writing this from the future) is like "wow, if only I knew what would happen next", but what happens next is super predictable and not shocking. Like at all. The last two pages of the book make up for it a LITTLE bit, but not enough that it lives up to what the book promises at the beginning. If you've never read a similar book then maybe it would be more shocking? But the events are so strongly foreshadowed that it would be tough to not predict.

If you loved the books "The Lightness" is being compared to then I'm guessing you'll like this. It's just for me personally it didn't work out, as much as I wanted it to. There is so much potential in this book but unfortunately that potential is undermined at almost every (non-existent) twist and turn.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
deborahee | 5 outras críticas | Feb 23, 2024 |
This 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.
 
Assinalado
brangwinn | 5 outras críticas | Jun 28, 2020 |
Olivia 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.… (mais)
1 vote
Assinalado
Sheila1957 | 5 outras críticas | Jun 20, 2020 |
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
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2020/06/the-lightness.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3391905591
… (mais)
1 vote
Assinalado
SheTreadsSoftly | 5 outras críticas | Jun 14, 2020 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
14
Also by
1
Membros
205
Popularidade
#107,802
Avaliação
½ 3.4
Críticas
8
ISBN
80

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