"Cool, dark, and pretty as a clear night sky, The Lightness delivers a coming-of-age suspense tale that starts out familiar--ominous warnings, unreliable narration--before forging its own path." -- Entertainment Weekly

"Emily Temple's debut The Lightness grants us a bold, smart, hilarious new voice. She tells a page-turning story that's also a detective story--psychologically wise and totally wiseassed, all while being both cynical and spiritual. A classic must read!" -- Mary Karr, New York Times bestselling author of Lit

"Emily Temple's sentences are extraordinary: musical, bristling with animal intelligence, feline in their tensed sinuosity, their lack of the usual loyalties, their readiness to pounce. This remarkable novel is made up of equal parts desire and dread; it constantly surprised me, eerily outpacing my expectations. The Lightness is a glorious debut." -- Garth Greenwell, award-winning author of What Belongs to You

"Emily Temple has woven a darkly funny, luminously drawn mystery that hits bullseye after bullseye of language and emotion. The Lightness is a book I didn't know I needed and now can't stop thinking about: swift, surprising, and utterly captivating." -- Téa Obreht, New York Times bestselling author of Inland and The Tiger's Wife

"Who can resist a novel about a Buddhist Boot Camp for Bad Girls? This debut is funny, whip-smart and transcendently wise about friendship, family, lust and love." -- Jenny Offill, New York Times bestselling author of Weather and Dept. of Speculation

"A nimble and intelligent coming-of-age story, distinguished by a setting that offers extraordinary pleasures, and sumptuous prose. The Lightness is part thriller, part fairytale, in the tradition of writers like Emily St. John Mandel and Lydia Millet." -- Kelly Link, award-winning author of Get in Trouble

"Temple's debut is suspenseful and stylish, opening with one mysterious death and an even more mysterious disappearance, taking on the nature of religious belief and female embodiment, doing it all with wit and intelligence." -- The Boston Globe, What to Read Now

"It's a teen thriller in the vein of the '90s horror movie The Craft . . . But it's also a beautiful meditation on meditation, with readings of sacred texts and light Buddhist history, populated with girls who refuse to act the way they're expected to; who have too much passion, too many feelings and nowhere to put them; who are on the cusp of adulthood . . . The book--frequently hilarious, and thoughtful throughout--also transcends expectations at its end." -- The New York Times Book Review

"For fans of Sweetbitter and The Girls, Emily Temple's debut glitters with poignant observations about desire and womanhood." -- Marie Claire, What We're Reading

"Temple is an excellent writer . . . a rich meditation on the nature of desire and belonging." -- Los Angeles Times

"Very funny . . . She's a gifted writer and storyteller with an unwavering command of her plot." -- Washington Post