Go Lightly

A Novel

By: Brydie Lee-Kennedy

Narrated by: Nicolette Chin

""Brydie Lee-Kennedy's writing is sharp and funny and humane. A passionate chronicler of the ridiculous—in people, in society, in sex—Brydie skewers everyone equally, but always with empathy, warmth and wit."" —Monica Heisey, author of Really Good, Actually

For readers of Dolly Alderton and Candice Carty-Williams, a spiky bisexual love story that introduces the unforgettable Ada—a free-spirited Holly Golightly for the age of DMs who follows the whimsies of her heart wherever they lead.

Ada is a seeker, a perpetually moving ball of excess. A twenty-six-year-old Australian living in London, she ekes out a living as a cabaret performer and part-time temp. Yet Ada can't imagine wanting to be any other age or any other place. Every night is an opportunity to be thrilled and every morning a chance to recount her escapades to friends.

So when Ada falls for Sadie and Stuart at the same time, she sees no reason not to pursue them both. But as the responsibilities of adult life begin to encroach—bills, family, more bills—and Sadie and Stuart find out about one another, the people around Ada increasingly insist it’s time for her to settle down. Can she resist the inevitable?

Effortlessly hilarious and painfully relatable, Go Lightly is a love letter to girls who are the life of the party; girls who say yes without fear. In smartly observed and endlessly warm prose, Brydie Lee-Kennedy contemplates the great freedoms and greater uncertainties of modern love and friendship, introducing an utterly flawed yet charming character who revels in her youth and sexuality while reckoning with a serious case of main character syndrome.

an electrifying treasury of queer joy

Sometimes you want to snuggle up with a great book, and sometimes you want to make out with it and swoon for a week. This stunner provides both options in spades. It’s that rare gem: hilarious, vulnerable, big-hearted, and actually sexy. Kennedy explores and carefully documents so many varieties of intimacy, from small talk to mutual obsession. Ada and her loved ones flit between groundedness and the wild urgency of being 20-something and in love with so much. Ada is mesmerizing throughout, but never so much as when we witness her paradigms shift in real time as she finds her center. I listened to the audiobook, and was especially into the quick-change accent-artistry. I know I’ll return to this story and its vivid particulars often, for comfort and for comedy.