Wow wow and wow. I've never read a book that has touched me as much as this one did! I am an avid reader of self help books and actually this is pro the best one I've ever read - even though it's clearly not a self help book.
I'm so glad there was closure on Robert and that Abi got the happy ending she deserved.
This book will stay with me forever, thank you!

I really could not ‘get into’ this book. I really tried but got half way through and decided I had had enough

This is a lovely and strange tale of a woman exploring her feelings and coming to terms with significant loss in her life. Abigail is a delightful character, living a modern life, equally confused and amazed by how she feels about events.

Through meeting others who have been receiving mysterious chapters from a guidebook for many years, Abigail starts to reexamine her experiences as she focuses on her past life alongside a busy present caring for her young son Oscar and running her happiness cafe.

I loved the style of writing which is very open and honest, and the many characters that drift in and out of the story are finely drawn and have both their own battles to fight but also a profound impact on Abigail's growing self-awareness.

The end of the book is very moving and full of hope and resolution. A frank examination of modern circumstances, this is a thought-provoking book whose emotional impact stays with you and marks an opportunity for the reader to examine their own experiences with some of the same honesty.

A strange read. It took me a long while to get into this story: a tale of Abigail and her quest for the truth.
A grown-up woman, divorced and mother to a 4-year-old, Abi is constantly on the lookout for answers in life to one big question. Where is her brother?
Robert, her brother, disappeared when she was 15, and there has never been any information about where he went, or what happened to him.
Ironically, that same year, Abi was sent a chapter of a self-help manual, the Guidebook. The chapters kept coming throughout her life, and she felt a link between her brother's disappearance and the words in the guide.
A request to come to a retreat, where the Guidebook would be the centre of attention draws her into another chapter of her life, filled with different discoveries.
It was a strange story, based in the past as well as the present. I did find myself slightly confused. Are we meant to fly? Or was it all a euphemism for life?
But I did like Abi, and her little son Oscar.
Many thanks to Netgalley, Atlantic Books and Allan & Unwin for an ARC in exchange for an honest review;

I adored the start and end of this book (which made me cry) but felt it did meander a bit through the middle. As an exploration of love and losses, and family tensions, it was really well drawn. I just felt it could have been a little tighter.

I was a little confused what this book was really about. Was it “flight” or was it the story of Abi?

Abigail Sorensen has been receiving parts of a 'Handbook for life' for many years. She has no idea who has sent it or why.
Without going over the incredibly convoluted story, I will just say that the character who shone through for me, was her lovely son Oscar.His sayings were a delight.
In general, I found the book a little too 'space age' for me, maybe I'm the wrong age. And learning to fly...?
But thank youNetGalley for the chance to review it.

I have never read this Author before. I am sorry but I only read about 30 minutes of it and could not get engrossed. I have not finished it.

A marmite book, and sadly not for me.

The premise of the book was an engaging one, mysterious pages of a ‘guidebook for life’ turning up unannounced and the expectation that the purpose behind it will all be revealed. However this took a rather unusual turn, and whilst some may view this as a metaphor for modern life, it was not one that I could fully navigate without a sense of exasperation.

Perhaps my rational mind could not relax into such a tale, although I did enjoy elements of the story and the flashbacks to a past traumatised by unresolved loss were movingly told, overall it wasn’t really for me.

“What I think is that life is full of memories, stories and facts, and we push our way through them – and now and then, we pluck one, pull on the seam and make that responsible for everything.”


I honestly don’t even know how to begin talking about this book. I have so many thoughts about it, totally disjointed, and the idea of structuring them into something readable is daunting. I was unsure of this book at first, but after a while I was falling more in love with it with every passing chapter.

From the beginning, you as a reader can honestly not tell where this book is heading. Not at all. After a mysterious letter leads a group of seemingly unconnected people to a retreat, where a select few will learn the secrets of human flight, how much do you utilise the suspension of disbelief? After all, none of the people there believe in what they’re studying, so why should you. But there is always a tiny hint of “but, what if?” hiding in the background.

So yes, this book is about the theory of human flight. But god, it’s about so much more than that.

Light-hearted ridiculousness has been perfectly balanced by Moriarty with gut-punching devastation. When this book hits hard, it hits hard. Abigail, the narrator, has a tone similar to that of characters such as Kimmy Schmidt and Eleanor Oliphant – and the almost naive outlook that these characters share is mirrored also in the trauma under the surface.

The exploration of self-help books is a potent theme throughout the story. “The Guidebook”, non-chronological chapters of which Abigail had been receiving through the post since she was a teenager, is what draws the key group of characters together, after all. The outlandishness of the book’s purpose – to teach humans how to soar through the sky like birds – lends to the satirical nature of this exploration. And yet, the story also feels – to me, at least – like a kind of homage, too. A cautious one. Via The Guidebook and various other self-help books, and also via her critique of them, Abigail goes on a journey of self-discovery throughout the story.

The final few chapters were so painfully honest, and one scene especially had me particularly choked up with its naked depiction of emotions, long-buried, suddenly surfacing in the most brutal way.

Summing up this book is impossible, but to me the most striking theme is the exploration of past trauma – particularly trauma that has not had its closure.

I definitely recommend this book, regardless of whether talks of “human flight” and “self-help” have put you off. Go into it with an open mind, because it will take you on a journey.

Rating: 4/5

A reader will interpret a story in the way they see it and not necessarily how the writer intended. For me, this lovely book - sometimes funny, sometimes sad and whimsical, was a way of exploring loss. In this case, the loss of a brother. It focuses on flight and how we as humans have lost our ability to fly but it felt allegorical to me, as if the whole theme of the book was wrapped around the loss of a brother and not accepting he’d gone.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, particularly the last chapter which laid down further events which may or may not happen to our main character. There is a lot of emotion in this book and it was palpable. It’s totally enjoyable and worth reading.

I adored this book. Firstly it has my favourite joke of all time in it, which I have never heard anyone else tell anyone, secondly it's strange and whimsical (in the best way) and funny and heartbreaking and it surprised me at every turn. I loved all the characters and everything about it. Apart from that it was brilliant.

I like to leave positive reviews, but I did struggle with this book, sorry. Just found it very difficult to get into, put it down and picked it back up again. Think it’s a ‘marmite’’ one. Thanks for letting me review an advanced copy NetGalley.

This is definitely an unusual story. I struggled to get into the story and didn't find it easily engaging. The narrative is singular and I wanted the dialogue to be more conversational.
The characters are interesting and well written and I found parts funny.. I did find the narrative, for me, was slightly strange.
I am sure there are those who will absolutely adore this story but unfortunately for me it just wasn't a hit.

I really couldn't make my mind up about this book. It has a promising start of being something quite different and then seems to lose it's way and becomes meandering in the middle but picks up again at the end. There are several humorous passages and likeable characters. Mix of fantasy and life with a few different writing styles within the book which I found a little difficult to follow at times as it didn't flow in places. A book of many layers.

An interesting book, well written with engaging characters, a bit too many and far too much detail about all the characters for my liking but still worth reading

I love Liane Moriarty books so, working on the assumption that the Moriarty sisters are basically the new Brontes, I got this book. In summary, much of it is beautifully written, original and evocative prose and the ideas of missing people and flight were intriguing, I can't say I've read anything quite like this before and overall I enjoyed it. I did feel it was overlong and sometimes felt myself getting impatient. Not everything needs to be described at length; I don't need to meet ALL the people! But yeah, give it a go - it definitely has the heart, if not all of the humour of her sister's novels,

I’ve had a real run of Netgalley books which turn out to be not quite what I expected and Gravity is a Thing definitely falls into that category. At first I was really unsure whether it was a book I was going to enjoy, but by the end I was utterly absorbed and found myself in tears more than once. Moriarty’s style took some getting used to - the story is deftly told to us rather than shown to us - but it’s well worth persevering if, like me, you can find this way of writing offputting.

Abigail is an honest narrator, not all is likeable but always believable. She runs a happiness café and is a single mother to her small son, Oscar. Since her midteens she’s received chapters of a self-help book called The Guidebook. This whimsical conceit dominates the start of the book as Abigail heads off on a retreat run by the unknown senders of the chapters on a Tasmanian island where she meets the other receivers of the Guidebook and learns the astonishing claims behind its creation. Back in Sydney, lonely and in need of adult company, she joins a weekly class along with a handful of other Guidebook recipients and starts to examine the events that have brought her to this point, rereading the annual reflections she sent the Guidebook’s authors. This conceit allows the narration to take place in several time periods, from the present day to the catastrophic events that shaped her teenage years and the rest of her life, to the breakdown of her marriage.
This is a beautiful, absorbing and emotional read, and I never quite knew where it would take me, deftly plotted with entwining strands neatly coming together in a satisfying way. Gravity is a Thing is a really extraordinary book, filled with real, quirky characters and moments of intense emotion, sadness and joy. Highly, highly recommended.

After finishing this book I’m genuinely confused about how to feel about it and how to describe it!
To begin with the author’s writing style is beautiful, her details, descriptions and characters and just soooo wonderfully done, her turn of phrase hooks you in and keeps you there.
I liked the main character Abi and empathised with her, she tries to do her best, hates saying no and is hooked into ‘the guidebook’ a mysterious self help book which she has been receiving chapters from since she was 16. I loved the parts where she was just being a mom, or going about her day to day life. I also loved the kindness characters show each other during the flight school sections.
Although I loved the story, toward the end the disjointedness (which I know is meant on purpose) became a little frustrating as I just wanted to be told what happened!
I was happy with how it finished though and came away feeling lighter somehow.
A beautiful read and unlike any other.
Thank you to netgalley, the author and publishers for gifting me this book in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Wouldn’t you, at some juncture in your life, have loved to possess an instruction manual to help you decide? What if it had been sent to you anonymously, chapter by chapter over years? The chapters of “The Guidebook” that are sent to Abigail Sorensen for 20 years from when she was 15, when her brother disappeared, are random in sequence and don’t seem to make much sense. Abigail eventually becomes a lawyer - however her thoughts, actions and behaviour have nothing of a lawyer, she’s more of a ditzy naive sort.
And yet, when she is invited to go on a retreat for a “reveal”, i.e. what the purpose of the book was, she accepts to find out. But she has not been the only recipient. The “retreat” and a subsequent number of “sessions” is organised by the son of the guidebook authors. Written in a stream-of-consciousness style, I struggled to get into the book, then its utter weirdness drew me in for a while. It’s a drifty book, veering from the guidebook to childhood memories to uni events to past boyfriends to memories of her brother to present events and back again. Too much pretentious navel-gazing for my liking.