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Gravity Is the Thing

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

The adult debut from bestselling, award-winning young adult author Jaclyn Moriarty—a frequently hilarious, brilliantly observed novel in the spirit of Maria Semple, Rainbow Rowell, and Gail Honeyman—that follows a single mother's heartfelt search for greater truths about the universe, her family and herself.

Twenty years ago, Abigail Sorenson's brother Robert went missing one day before her sixteenth birthday, never to be seen again. That same year, she began receiving scattered chapters in the mail of a self-help manual, the Guidebook, whose anonymous author promised to make her life soar to heights beyond her wildest dreams.

The Guidebook's missives have remained a constant in Abi's life—a befuddling yet oddly comforting voice through her family's grief over her brother's disappearance, a move across continents, the devastating dissolution of her marriage, and the new beginning as a single mother and café owner in Sydney.

Now, two decades after receiving those first pages, Abi is invited to an all-expenses paid weekend retreat to learn "the truth" about the Guidebook. It's an opportunity too intriguing to refuse. If Everything is Connected, then surely the twin mysteries of the Guidebook and a missing brother must be linked?

What follows is completely the opposite of what Abi expected––but it will lead her on a journey of discovery that will change her life––and enchant listeners. Gravity Is the Thing is a smart, unusual, wickedly funny novel about the search for happiness that will break your heart into a million pieces and put it back together, bigger and better than before.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from May 13, 2019
      This tender and frank adult debut by YA novelist Moriarty (The Year of Secret Assignments) follows one woman’s search for happiness in a world as brimming with promises of healing as it is overflowing with letdowns. On her 16th birthday, Abi Sorenson’s beloved brother went missing. On the very same day, she received the first chapter of a mysterious self-help book titled The Guidebook in the mail, and received chapters intermittently through the years—the chapters cover everything from the death of metaphysics (in a single paragraph) to winking criticism of Keats to more traditional self-help metaphors. Now 36 with a young son, and 20 years into the lessons of The Guidebook—and still reeling from the unresolved circumstances of her brother’s disappearance, as well as grieving her ruined marriage—Abi is invited to a remote island to learn the truth about why these messages came to her. The course ultimately leads her back to her hometown and an opportunity to further explore the mysteries surrounding The Guidebook with others whose life it has haunted—which, she hopes, might somehow help her find her brother. With an eye as keen for human idiosyncrasies as Miranda July’s, and a sense of humor as bright and surprising as Maria Semple’s, this is a novel of pure velocity; it sucks the reader into Abi’s problems and her joys in equal, brilliant measure. A complex dissection of the self-help industry, as well as a complete and moving portrait of a difficult, delightful woman, Moriarty proves her adult novels can live up to her YA work’s reputation.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      In a smart-alecky tone mixed with genuine heart, narrator Aimee Horne nails the character of Abigail Sorenson. Abigail is a single mother in her mid-30s running a caf� in Sydney after leaving her law practice. She is a satirical and sharp observer of the absurd with a witty turn of phrase, but she also holds her losses close--a cheating husband and the unsolved disappearance of her brother when they were both teenagers. This audiobook mix of the quirky and the tragic holds together partly due to the terrific talents of Horne. Her Australian accent is charming, her snappy delivery perfect and often hilarious, her emotional depth and empathy completely authentic, and her timing terrific--her pace noticeably quickens as Abigail's son faces a medical emergency. A.B. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

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  • English

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