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Sarah Bannan
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Weightless: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Sarah Bannan (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 189 ratings
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When Carolyn Lessing moves from New Jersey to Alabama with her mother, she rattles the status quo of the juniors at Adams High. Gorgeous, stylish, a great student and gifted athlete without a mean girl bone in her body Carolyn is gobbled up right away by the school's cliques. She even begins dating a senior, Shane, whose on again/off again girlfriend Brooke becomes Carolyn's bitter romantic rival. When a make-out video of Carolyn and Shane makes the rounds, Carolyn goes from golden girl to slut in an instant, with Brooke and her best friend responsible for the campaign.
Carolyn is hounded and focused on, and becomes more and more private. Questions about her family and her habits torture her. But a violent confrontation with Shane and Brooke in the student parking lot is the last attack Carolyn can take.
A novel to drop us all back into the intensity of our high school years, WEIGHTLESS is a startling and assured debut.

Sarah Bannan's deft use of the first person plural gives Weightless an emotional intensity and remarkable power that will send you flying through the pages and leave you reeling.

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  1. Print length
    333 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    St. Martin's Griffin
  5. Publication date
    June 30, 2015
  6. File size
    1162 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
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  9. Enhanced typesetting
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Riveting, agile, and beautifully judged: one of those essential stories that will capture the imagination of different generations of readers. Superb.” ―Colum McCann

“Sarah Bannan brings us right into the middle of bullying, 21st Century-style, in an novel that is chilling, engrossing and very, very impressive.” ―Roddy Doyle, Man-Booker-Prize-winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

“Provocative and timely.... Parents and children around the world will recognise the difficult and fractured society it depicts.” ―John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

“This chilling story has a haunting sense of immediacy...Bannan's provocative novel will stay with readers long after they finish it.” ―Publisher's Weekly

About the Author

Sarah Bannan grew up in New York, Texas, Florida and Alabama. She is the Head of Literature for the Irish Arts Council and lives in Dublin, Ireland, with her husband and daughter. Weightless is her first novel.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00QRY1O9E
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Griffin; Library Unabridged edition (June 30, 2015)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 30, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1162 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 333 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 189 ratings

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Sarah Bannan

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Customer reviews

3.6 out of 5 stars
3.6 out of 5
189 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

L. Campbell
5.0 out of 5 stars Bullies no more
Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2015
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High School- who wants a do over? I would not do it for money.

I went to high school with Sarah Bannan, the author and was nervous to be transported back to an all familiar setting. Some reviewers said the text was predictable. Perhaps that's because this behavior, stereotyping and bullying, is common place and tolerated to a deficit. Though many details she penned were swapped and brought to present day, I was transported back to my home town and high school where my stomach was often in knots- not only due to peers, but in part because of the adults who were bullies themselves.

Not all teens resort to suicide, but many people who are bullied carry that experience with them long beyond their school years. Reading Weightless, I was struck by the way in which the adults encouraged a culture of judgmental behavior. This was a reality in the real "Adamsville High" and I had not previously connected that with the bullying carried out by peers.

Sarah should be commended for bringing this topic to present day conversation, and schools, teachers, and parents should begin talking and correcting the ways in which adult behavior perpetuates the bullying atmosphere in our schools and society.

Weightless is a great read to get in touch with just how mean peers can be and how parents and other adults can reshape that disfunction.
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Patricia garry
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2015
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Enjoyable
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Queen Mommy
4.0 out of 5 stars It's difficult to say I "enjoyed" reading Weightless. Compelling and tragic
Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2015
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It's hard to say I enjoyed reading Weightless. I felt like I was gaining an education in the ways teens and tweens interact with one another...which is tragic, painful and completely unmerciful. I was also extremely disappointed in the behavior of adult characters...knowing this is all a very true, real-world problem. This was an eye-opening read told from the perspective of a girl with the ability to stop a horrible tragedy from happening, but instead is unwilling to risk the scrutiny of not going along with the crowd. You see the struggle between being "cool" and being an outcast...or being just on the fringe of the "in-crowd" and how desperate kids are to be accepted. Not much has changed from that point since I was in school 30 years ago. What has changed is the unwillingness of adults...both parents and teachers...to hold teens accountable for their actions. The girls account of the events as they unfold leaves one shaking their head in profound sadness. Weightless clearly depicts rumors, gossip and jealousy at the root of bullying...and in some cases, teen suicide. I could not help but think of the Phoebe Prince story while reading the book. I didn't realize...until the very end...that it was inspired by the story of that sweet girl. Hats off to Sarah Bannan for putting pen to paper and shedding light on a story/subject that so many community leaders, school administrators, students and parents try desperately to conceal. I live far from Massachusetts, in the heart of the Southeast, but Phoebe's story struck a chord in me that I will never forget. How sad that a lovely persons beauty is met with ugliness, and kindness is met with deception...over nothing more than Ego. This should be mandatory reading for parents and school administrations.
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celine
5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Female Read
Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2015
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This is an incredibly amazing spectacular read that made me cry and yell and even mentally knock a chair or two over in my overly invested head. This is a great novel in character development and the fact that this story was told not in the viewpoint of the main protagonist but in the eyes of another, only enhanced the novel's mystery and suspense. This is overall a great example of the extremes of female bullying and slut shaming and how harsh words that are easily spoken on a daily basis, hurt people more than we even realize. The sway of the opinions of such characters regarding the situations that were taking place proved to the reader that although the novel was developed, maybe some characters didn't grow at all because they still found someone to blame and someone to follow. Evidently the ending was satisfying even though tragic occurrences presented itself throughout.
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Top reviews from other countries

N. McGinley
5.0 out of 5 stars to hide behind an agreed narrative like they hide behind their screens - teenagers so lacking ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 24, 2015
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Totally compelling. I think Sarah really nailed the spooky voice of the girls who band together even after the fact to avoid their own guilt, to hide behind an agreed narrative like they hide behind their screens - teenagers so lacking in confidence that they couldn't even strike up conversation with the objects of their fascination, so for them literally not to have the self-esteem to speak up for themselves is a very effective device. 'It wasn't right and it wasn't fair but we were happy and relived and excited it wasn't us.' I like the way she smuggles in the admissions, the glimpses of their self-knowledge are earned.

The Facebook posts, counselor transcripts and newspaper cuttings broaden it out and immediately show how claustrophobic the school is, how small the hive minds really are. When you finally get a taste of the tone of the texts and posts and know who is an active participant, you want to rip the cowards apart. It's been a while since I've experienced actual anger towards fictional characters - it's such an emotive issue for all of us and we substitute the tormentors of our youth or indeed more recent bullies for Brooke, for Gemma, for Shane.

The pecking order and the rigid hierarchy of the cliques are terrifying as any multi-talented student is just as likely to be a social butterfly, if not a loner. That idea that it's safer for kids not to be talented, especially the girls, is just sickening. 'When you're new, and when you're a girl, it's not so good to be good at something.' I think that mentality has invaded adult life too, or perhaps was always there - so we all get ready for the backlash whenever we stick our heads over the parapet. Also brilliant that it's only noticed that Andrew's attractive when a pretty girl starts going out with him. They can't even trust their own opinions - someone has to receive the imprimatur of a popular kid before they're deemed worthy of their creepy gaze.

The twin interlinked poles of the Church housed in a retail unit warehouse (nice touch) and the football ground seem designed to pull anyone sensible (or sensitive like Andrew) to pieces. The celebrity status of the golden footballer-cheerleader couples are cemented by the school and church anointing them further as class spokesmen or Homecoming Queens. The only things worth aspiring to are winning and being pretty while doing so. That message can't be viewed as a bastard mutant of small-town America and Hollywood aspiration anymore. When I was growing up, Irish adults would watch US TV, raise their eyes to heaven and say 'Only in America.' You don't hear that now. Kids swapping Bible quotes online to needle each other is a level of hypocrisy I didn't know could exist. At least the kids who beat me up in school believed in nothing at all. (Nihilists' punches didn't have the self-righteous heft of the saviour behind them...)

What's really disturbing about the situation dramatised in 'Weightless' is that the whole world now feels like a high school, where people are mocked for their looks and publicly shamed over their sex lives. It's like adults are sticking at a stage of vindictive, jealous adolescence. Bad as it is when it happens to performers hungry for fame who may have known the dangers of public exposure beforehand, that abuse now rains down on anyone unlucky enough to be caught on a camera phone is a massive invasion of privacy and trouncing of basic dignity.When satire like Dave Eggers' The Circle is fast becoming plausible prophecy, we know it's time to turn off the devices for a while..

The humour here works all the more in the later stages (perhaps because the reader is so glad of any respite), as we watch Carolyn's tragedy unfold with the inevitability of a slow motion accident. I loved the joke that Miss Simpson had to be a fat, jealous lesbian nursing the grievances of her own high school career by pointing out the girls' Super Sweet 16 expectations were warped by TV and the internet. It's a surprise and pleasure that it's gets funnier in the last quarter of the book as the girls mantra of banality out-does itself.

This will send a lot of readers back to the coverage of the Phoebe Prince case and all the bullying incidents closer to their own homes, but Bannan has managed to articulate what none of the media reports could print or perhaps understand: 'We wanted them to be held responsible. If they were. It meant we were off the hook.'

Cracking novel.
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GCH
3.0 out of 5 stars I enjoyed it over all but it had a bit of ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 9, 2016
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A bit of an unexpected story. I enjoyed it over all but it had a bit of a slow start.
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Jane
4.0 out of 5 stars I found the narrative voice - 'we' - a little difficult at times but overall a very good book with an important story
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 4, 2015
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This book had me hooked. Its depiction of high school bullying was very convincing and I had a growing sense of dread as the story progressed. I found the narrative voice - 'we' - a little difficult at times but overall a very good book with an important story.
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keen-reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Did we get bullied into silence...or did she allow herself to be made a victim?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 20, 2015
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'Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself'. Tim Fields

What an unexpectedly powerful and impressive read! At the first glance, it seems like a simple story for young adults about typical teenagers in small town in America. You will find here everything commonly associated with American high schools: cheerleaders, jocks, football players, band geeks, homecoming, make-up, clothes, hanging out at the mall, parties, sex and...a strict social hierarchy. Beautiful and talented Carolyn Lessing moves to that small town from New Jersey and once again - at the first glance - she seems perfect, like a girl that has it all who then quickly and effortlessly becomes one of the most popular students in school. But don't let the first impressions deceive you as there is much more to Carolyn and this story than meets the eye.

Michael Honda once said that everyone in America likely has a bullying story, whether as the victim, bully or as a witness. Well this is exactly such a story - a brilliantly crafted exploration of bullying that ultimately provides no right or wrong answers and leaves the readers to decide for themselves who is to blame. Did the bullying go too far? Did the victim allowed herself to become one? Did the victim provoke the bullies in any way? Was the silence of the countless witnesses at fault too? Were the absentee parents to blame? Or was it simply the school that failed to react in time? Bullying is a complex subject and - accordingly- so is this story.

MILD SPOILERS
The story is told from the perspective of 'we': 'we sat', 'we smiled', 'we knew', 'we heard', etc. We know little about 'them': not their names, not their emotions and feelings, not the names of their parents or siblings, not their grades at school- nothing personal at all - we don't even know the name of the person who is actually telling us this story except that it's a female. And what a clever little literary technique on part of the author this is! Again, I think this can be interpreted in a number of ways:
- By telling the story as 'we', the silent witnesses of cyber bullying wash their hands of some of the responsibility. It's much easier to say 'we did nothing to stop it' than 'I did nothing...'
- The chance is we all were the 'we' witnesses at some point in our lives. It's there to show how universal the story is...
- Carolyn allowed the bullies to made her a victim; she chose to see herself through their eyes; if only she knew that our 'we' narrators were in awe of her, wanting to be her, wanting to be around her ...if only she chose to see herself through those eyes...Or even better if only she chose to define herself regardless of what everyone else thought of her.

Very good book
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Spenner
5.0 out of 5 stars Clever and convincing
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 6, 2015
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I really liked this although it took me a while to get used to the narrative voice. I loved the small-town atmosphere Bannan creates - the hot weather, the humidity, the gossip and the inevitability of the girls' routine. She captures the glamour that Carolyn brings with her, as an outsider - but also the suspicion she attracts from the people who grew up there. It's painful to watch Carolyn's journey but it's so believable, and meticulously portrayed. There are a lot of prevarications and contradictions in the narrative which is part of the joy of this book, as the narrators seek to excuse themselves and manage quite the opposite. It's not quite up there with the brilliant Megan Abbott, though it reminded me of her work, but it's convincing and very well done.
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