'Abigail Sorensen has spent her life trying to unwrap the events of 1990.
'It was the year she started receiving random chapters from a self-help book called The Guidebook in the post.
'It was also the year Robert, her brother, disappeared on the eve of her sixteenth birthday.
'She believes the absurdity of The Guidebook and the mystery of her brother's disappearance must be connected.
'Now thirty-five, owner of The Happiness Café and mother of four-year-old Oscar, Abigail has been invited to learn the truth behind The Guidebook at an all-expenses-paid retreat.
'What she finds will be unexpected, life-affirming, and heartbreaking.
'A story with extraordinary heart, warmth and wisdom.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'When it comes to books, the best-selling genre is not fantasy or romance or sci-fi but self-help, the closest thing we have to written guides on how we should live our lives. You might say the Bible is the oldest self-help book we’ve got, though it’s rumoured the earliest texts of this prescriptive kind were written in ancient Egypt. (Introduction)'
'Where is the truth? Jaclyn Moriarty’s second novel for adults pairs a single mother and a mysterious guidebook to deliver a story that reflects the lived experience of the 21st century.' (Introduction)
'The first thing one notices about Jaclyn Moriarty’s Gravity Is the Thing is its narrative voice: distinctive, almost stylised. Exclamation marks, emphasised words in italics, a staccato rhythm, and clever comments in parentheses add up to a writing style sometimes deemed quirky. This style is not restricted to the voice of the first-person narrator but rather is a lens through which the work and its characters are cast. It reflects, more broadly, the author’s playful approach to language (as seen, too, in her website and blogs).' (Introduction)
'The first thing one notices about Jaclyn Moriarty’s Gravity Is the Thing is its narrative voice: distinctive, almost stylised. Exclamation marks, emphasised words in italics, a staccato rhythm, and clever comments in parentheses add up to a writing style sometimes deemed quirky. This style is not restricted to the voice of the first-person narrator but rather is a lens through which the work and its characters are cast. It reflects, more broadly, the author’s playful approach to language (as seen, too, in her website and blogs).' (Introduction)
'Where is the truth? Jaclyn Moriarty’s second novel for adults pairs a single mother and a mysterious guidebook to deliver a story that reflects the lived experience of the 21st century.' (Introduction)
'When it comes to books, the best-selling genre is not fantasy or romance or sci-fi but self-help, the closest thing we have to written guides on how we should live our lives. You might say the Bible is the oldest self-help book we’ve got, though it’s rumoured the earliest texts of this prescriptive kind were written in ancient Egypt. (Introduction)'
