"Funny, perceptive and effortlessly engaging, Go Lightly explores the love triangle of a young performer. Are two half-relationships better than one?"
I loved this novel!
After performing at the Edinburgh Fringe festival one year, Ada finds herself in two unexpected half-relationships: one with anxious, funny Scott, who messaged as a fan of her Edinburgh fringe show (as he lives in a different city, their relationship takes place almost entirely digitally), and one with independent, enigmatic Sadie, a former hook-up who ends up moving in with Ada (friends who sleep together when they share a bed).
I’m a sucker for stories about love triangles and how comparing concurrent relationships can bring out different parts of yourself. My favourite parts of the novel where when Ada is increasingly torn between her part-relationships, Stuart’s constant intimate conversation but physical absence is inverted in Sadie, both only half-satisfying, yet all the more addictive for it. Lee-Kennedy also captures the relatable thrill of flirting via messenger.
Often when I read novels with romantic storylines, even if the character is torn between multiple potential love interests, it often feels pretty ‘obvious’ who we’re ‘meant’ to be rooting for them to end up with, and therefore unsurprised by the ending (not necessarily a bad thing – it’s the journey not the destination etc) but I enjoyed with this novel that I felt very much suspended between whether I wanted Ada to be with Scott or Sadie, or both, or neither of them ‘in the end’ – I was enjoying the journey, wondering what might happen that might sway me one way or another.
| Primary Genre | Romance / Relationship Stories |
| Other Genres: | |
| Recommendations: |
WHO IS ADA?
With Sadie she's an Aussie girl in London, a performer, a ball of creativity and a lover of food.
With Stuart she's funny and quirky, capable of finding romance in a dinner of crisps on a cold harbour and long train rides.
With her family she's the joker, the peacekeeper, the entertainer.
But she doesn't have to choose which version of herself to be… right?
Ada's answer to most questions is: yes. Every night is an opportunity to be thrilled and every morning a chance to recount it to her friends, so when she falls for Sadie and Stuart at the same time, she sees no reason not to pursue them both.
But as the realities of modern life begin to catch up with her, and everyone wants Ada to define herself in relation to them, she feels the weight of the questions: which version of yourself is most true? And do other people enhance your best self, or distort it?
A funny and tender twenty-first century story of family, friendship, love – and how getting it wrong is sometimes the only way to get it right.
Go Lightly features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Contemporary lifestyle fiction, Modern and Contemporary romance, General Fiction, Fiction, Romance / Relationship Stories, Debut Books of the Month, Debuts, Recommendations, Star Books, LGBTQ+ Fiction
Go Lightly is available in Paperback, Hardback
Go Lightly was written by Brydie Lee-Kennedy and published by Bloomsbury an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing (UK)
Go Lightly has 384 pages
£8.99
.jpeg)
