Gravity Is the Thing    by Jaclyn Moriarty Order:  USA  Can Harper, 2019 (2019) Hardcover, CD, e-Book     Reviewed by Hilary Williamson Jaclyn Moriarty's Gravity Is the Thing follows the everyday doings - and ongoing musings about life, the universe etc. - of single mother Abigail Sorenson. She has never got over the fact that her brother Robert disappeared twenty years before, the day before her sixteenth birthday. They had been extremely close. The year this happened, Abi started to receive annual self-help chapters (in no particular order) from a Guidebook, in the mail from an anonymous source. Abi trained as a lawyer but, after the failure of her marriage, ended up establishing and running the Happiness Cafe in Sydney, Australia. As the novel opens, a thirty-five year old Abi receives a surprising invitation to an all-expenses paid weekend retreat on an island in the Bass Strait (that divides the mainland from Tasmania) to learn the truth about the Guidebook. Though such a truth is very slow in coming, Abi does make new friends (and a new lover) through this experience. The story meanders back and forth in time, to gradually reveal what difference her brother's disappearance made to Abi's life; what the Guidebook is all about; and what did actually happen to Robert (that question kept me reading). Though somewhat intriguing, this novel did not really catch my interest. Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Contemporary books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews