Gravity Is the Thing is a magical, multi-layered debut novel by Jaclyn Moriarty.

Abigail Sorensen’s brother Robert disappeared without trace on the day before her 16th birthday; the same day she anonymously received the first chapter of a self-help guide called ‘The Guidebook’. For the last 20 years, life has been difficult for Abigail – her family never recovered from the grief of Robert’s mysterious disappearance, later Abigail’s marriage broke down and she is now a single mother to four year old Oscar.

The constant has always been ‘The Guidebook’, which she receives a new chapter every few months, promising to change her life, and clings to in hope that it will lead her to an explanation of what happened to her brother. So when Abigail receives an invitation to a retreat to discover the truth about the mysterious book, she is compelled to find out more.

Abigail is sensitive, troubled and quirky, and despite her tragic experiences, has an endearingly naïve and optimistic side to her. Her interactions with other characters, including son Oscar are witty and heart-warming.

This is a complex, original plot, with many, many elements beautifully woven together with a thought-provoking conclusion.

This was an enjoyable but also sad story. The concepts were interesting and the characters well drawn. Gets very wordy in parts but overall a good read.

I loved this book and immediately took to the main character of Abi. Abi owns a cafe, has a son Oscar and was previously a lawyer. As a teenager, Abi's brother goes missing (never to be heard of again) and soon after this event Abi starts receiving in the post regular chapters of a self-help guide. At 36, after a surprise and free invitation to a retreat on an Island in the Bass Strait, Abi meets a variety of people. I loved how this book was written and really liked Abi's humour in her asides and thoughts. It is honest, touching and a very easy story to relate to. Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy of this book.

This book intrigues right from the start with a curious title and an innovative concept, which is cleverly construed by the author. We meet single mother Abi, bravely soldiering on with her life, still mourning the loss of her brother Robert, who mysteriously disappeared many years ago. She struggles to care for her son while managing the Happiness Cafe.

Her own life is far from sublime. Adrift from her grieving parents, and deserted by her husband, she is wary of relationships and uncertain about the future. One constant remains: the arrival of mail she has received since her youth, and kept going by her desire for contact.

But the nature of it varies because instead of the usual intriguing thoughts and challenges, she gets an invitation to attend a weekend conference and finally find out who might be sending her this strange correspondence. And so she goes, led by curiosity and a need to know, and meets other attendees who have also been contacted since their teens.

Then there is Wilbur, the conference leader and gently self-effacing offspring of the founders of the letters themselves. He mystifies, intrigues, fascinates and frustrates them all in turns as he sets them tasks and assesses just who will be chosen to learn about the secrets of flight that transcend their current understanding.

Abi is one of the select few who make the final cut. There’s a fair amount of technical detail about flight throughout, which I found a bit tiresome sometimes. But there is also enough personal struggle, growth, and relationship forming development to keep the reader guessing and interested.

I loved the beginning and ending. However, the mid-section lost me at times with its convoluted descriptions of various means of flight. Where this novel does succeed is in revealing the heartwarming truth that what keeps our hearts rooted to earth, while simultaneously allowing them to soar, is in knowing we are loved.

An interesting and thought-provoking novel. I found it slow-going at the start but it was worth persevering. The plot of the novel has several strands - the protagonist, Abigail, had lost her brother 20 years earlier at the same time as receiving in the post the initial chapter of a self help book. Abigail, now a single mother and cafe owner, is invited to a retreat where she will be told the truth about the book which continued to appear in random chapters over the years. The story is intriguing as the different characters who join the retreat interrelate with each other and Abigail. I'm glad I persevered with the book as by the end I found it quite moving and the ending rather satisfying

The feel good novel for January goes to Gravity is the Thing by Jaclyn Moriarty. 20 years ago, Abigail's brother, Robert went missing just before her 16th birthday and was never seen again. Looking high and low, he has completely disappeared, leaving a black hole in the family. That same year, Abigail started to receive extracts from a self-help book promising to make her life soar. Now, the person sending her the book has invited her to a retreat to learn more. Abigail's life is about to unravel as the power of hope, friendship and community burst their way into her grief and sadness. This was an usual, joyful and uplifting read. If you know someone who needs a glimmer of hope in their life then give them this book.

I was intrigued by this book, but I'm afraid I found it a bit odd and disjointed and quite hard-going at times. I finished it with a sense of relief at having read it, rather than a sense of a well-enjoyed book.

A beautiful book quite unlike anything else I have ever read. It made me smile, it made me laugh and it made me cry.
Not so much a story but almost like having access to the continuous stream of thoughts going through Abigail's head, and as is common with one's thoughts, more of a helter skelter than a linear journey.
This is a book I will probably come back to time and again.

At some points the book grabbed me, at other parts it lost me. An unusual style, from Abigail's point of view. In some ways a tale of daily life, in others of aiming higher than you imagine is possible. In some ways a very sad tale of lost family. I enjoyed Abi's quirky style, her self doubt and honesty, and the exchanges with her son were priceless. It was easy to follow the flashbacks and The Guidebook, and then flip to present day. I was nervous when Abi went on the retreat and saw Wilbur as very odd at first, but he turned out to be a nice, normal man. We also saw the power of connections made. I thought Abi's Happiness Cafe was glossed over and more could have been made of it, but I guess the ficus was on life and relationships and everything else was incidental, if still relevant. We saw how the disappearance of Robert, Abi's brother, was really responsible for how she had reacted to life, and her release when she found out what had happened was immense. I loved the ending. #netgalley #gravityisthething #gravity

I'll admit, some parts of this book can be a little bit much to take in but the underlying story behind it is lovely. Please bare with it and get to know you characters as I did.
Jaclyn Moriarty, thank you for sharing this book with us.

'Gravity is the Thing' by Jaclyn Moriarty...an interesting read which initially grabbed me, but gradually lost me. It's a quirky read based around main character Abi, a single mum who has never recovered from the mysterious disappearance of her brother just before her 16th birthday. The action is set very much in the moment, with flashbacks to past events which have shaped Abi's future. The story revolves around a mysterious 'guidebook', chapters of which appear from time to time through the post...and which don't actually appear to make much sense!
Jaclyn's writing felt very like the modernist 'stream of consciousness' to me, otherwise known as 'a person's thoughts and conscious reactions to events, perceived as a continuous flow', and a style of writing that I never really got to grips with.
For me, the book seemed too long for its plot and my attention did wane as I progressed through it.
I give this book 3 stars.

For twenty years, Abi has been receiving chapters of a guidebook to life. These are full of bizarre self help type suggestions. Then she receives an invitation to a retreat where she meets Wilbur who is the son of the authors of the book. He promises that some of them will be told a secret. Over the next few months, Abi and the other selected ones attend seminars given by Wilbur. Meanwhile she starts reading the self help guides she has eschewed until now.

Abi is a wonderful character. A single mum with a four year old son, Oscar, she is resilient, insightful and full of wry humour. At the same time she is also very vulnerable. Her brother disappeared twenty years ago and her husband left her five years before. Her observations on the contents of some very famous self help books are very funny at times and the relationship between her and Oscar is beautifully depicted with Oscar being a great character in his own right.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. Yes, it was fantastical and absurd at times and the excerpts from the guidebook Abi received from Wilbur's parents were often annoying but Abi's voice shines through. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I enjoyed this book so much! It was so full of charm.

Truly I had no idea what it could be about, it was magical.

My heart was broken, put back together.
I laughed out loud!

This is a great book if you are looking for something different!

This book didn't grip me at all I thought it was too slow and odd to be something I could continue reading. I have found some gems from reading different genres but I'm afraid this didn't work for me.

Apologies for the 1 - star marking but I can't post my thoughts on NetGalley without rating the book with stars.

I really wanted to love this book - I've seen so many positivie things about it, people raving about it and I thought, wow, yes, I want to read it!
However, at around 33% I have to mark it as DNF - this absolutely doesn't work for me. It's dull, I can't warm to the main character and the whole idea just doesn't sit with me. I am awfully sorry but I don't have time for this.

This was a very slow book to get into with a poor introduction to the characters and story. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish it.

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 from a mysterious guidebook, whose anonymous authors promised to make her life soar to heights beyond her wildest dreams.

I loved the sound of this synopsis and was very excited to start reading this but u fortunately it fell a bit flat for me. Whilst this opinion may be unpopular, I found the book very slow going at times and almost a drag to get finished.

Abi is a great character and the author makes it very difficult not to like her! She has been through much in her life but the author manages to portray all sides of her, both sad and happy. I really enjoyed the back story scenes, where we get glimpses into Abi’s past life. Some of the group scenes were slow and repetitive, although perhaps this was what the author was trying to portray.

Despite finding it slow going, the ending for me worked well and I found the last chapters very enjoyable and satisfying. For me they were the best part of the book and made reading through the rest of the book worth it.

I found this book very different to anything I have read before.

This is a story written from the point of view of a single mother dealing with life - it goes back and forth in time so we learn how she was brought up and the things that have happened to her in her life to make her who she is. Her life is changed by chapters of a book (which she receives throughout her life) and by the group of people who have also received these chapters who she meets. It seems to me that the author was talking about fate, coincidence and how life goes on around us whether we want it to or not.

I liked the book mainly because it was based in Sydney and I loved reading about places I had been to and loved. I thought the story was really odd but interesting.

I really struggled with this book, and in fact never finished it. The style of writing was good, but it wasn't something that interested me. I gave it a good go, reading as far as when the truth was revealed, but just had no desire to continue. This is very rare for me, as I can probably count on two hands the books I haven't finished. This doesn't mean it was not a good book, just not for me.

I don’t know what it was about this book but it just wasn’t for me. I found I didn’t connect with the characters and actually found it difficult to get to the end. If I had to pick one thing that didn’t do it for me it was the pace of the book. I just found it too slow and it didn’t hold my interest. Thank you for the opportunity to provide an honest review.