WHY DID I LISTEN TO THE LUCY VARIATIONS BY SARA ZARR?
The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr basically ended up on my to be listened to list when I had to use up all my Audible credits before cancelling my account. I went with the practical and decided to get audiobook editions of books that I still needed to review from Netgalley. PLUS! I really enjoy listening to contemporary young adult audiobooks. Lately they just seem to be my audiobook genre of choice. So, I went with this book because I wanted something easy to follow while making my commute.

WHAT’S THE STORY HERE?
The Lucy Variations follows this teenage girl named Lucy who is super good at piano. She’s from a relatively privileged family as well — which plays a big role in the story. Lucy is in Prague at the beginning of the book, about to play an important concert when she finds out that her family kept some bad, life altering news from her just so she wouldn’t screw up the concert. Lucy walks out and is all F this shit. So, she ends up taking time off from the piano, against the wishes of her grandfather. Meanwhile, her little brother Gus is getting good. While Gus is learning, his tutor who is old, up and dies on him. This leads to a younger tutor, a man named Will who comes in and takes over. Lucy and Will form a bit of a bond. Will tries to help Lucy find her love of music again and just play for herself. Of course, some dramatic things go down.

HOW DID I LIKE THE LUCY VARIATIONS?
The Lucy Variations is an okay read. I mean the character of Will was kind of creepy. It just feels a little weird to read about 30ish year old men acting a little bit inappropriate with teenagers. I just got this weird vibe from him the whole time I was listening to the book. Honestly, I liked How To Save A Life much more than this. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying this was a bad book. Just, I have read better from Zarr.

HOW’S THE NARRATION?
The audiobook of The Lucy Variations is narrated by the author herself. This time around, I was glad that I listened to a Zarr narrated book via the Audible app. I was able to speed her slow narrating up to 2x the speed. Still, I think that I would have enjoyed this so much more if it was narrated by a professional narrator. The narration kind of jarred me from the story. It could have been better is all I am saying. Also, there’s music that plays during this and I was 100% not a fan, I kept thinking my phone was going off for work and it pulled me out of the story entirely.

I had not requested this title - it was auto-loaded to my shelf by the publisher and I have chosen not to read/review at this time.

Netgalley has required me to leave a rating in order to give feedback so I chose the 5 star.

Thank you

This pains me to write because I had such a great experience with Sara Zarr’s Sweethearts but The Lucy Variations just never took off for me. It’s not that I disliked it. I just didn’t love it or really feel much for it at all. There were moments that captivated me with this book but that’s about all they were — moments. I will admit that this had been my gym read and I forgot about it for a few months when I stopped going to the gym and started another workout routine so some of my feelings may be because I took off some time from it before I finished it.

The premise itself was really interesting to me — a former piano prodigy gives it all up and struggles with a life that involves being a normal teen and the family who resents her for quitting. There were a lot of interesting dynamics in this one like Lucy’s family building their life around this competitive piano playing, Lucy’s penchant for being into guys who are older and not appropriate crushes to have per se (aka teachers) and obviously Lucy trying to reconcile where her love for piano can fit into her life on her own terms now that she’s given up her career. There was also the scandal surrounding her LEAVING that world, her brother’s new piano teacher and friends who have to deal with her transitioning. The THINGS were there to make this a great one for me!

On the surface it did make it a compelling read for me, I was generally fascinated (and appalled) by Lucy and her family. Seriously her family is the worst and Lucy isn’t too far behind them. I even was intrigued by this relationship that Lucy began to have with her brother’s teacher. It was kind of provocative and I wondered where Zarr was going to go with it as soon as there were some seeds planted and I appreciated the fact I felt uncomfortable while reading it. I thought it was handled well. I also, despite not really feeling much for Lucy, was kind of interested in how she would reconcile her love for piano.

But the thing that just didn’t make this novel what it could have been for me was the characters. And it’s not even that most of them were dislikeable or awful but it’s that I didn’t feel like they were full of life which was a bummer for me considering how I know Sara Zarr can write really full characters. I felt nothing for any of them really. On the surface they were all pretty interesting characters but there was some disconnect in making me feel like I should care and that they were more than who we were told they were. I didn’t feel like I really got to know anyone besides Lucy despite it being 3rd person.

I think, despite this not being the best Sara Zarr for me, that there are still a lot of redeemable things about it especially the writing and the readability once you get really into it and I have no doubt there are plenty of readers who loved this and will love it. Something just went amiss for me personally.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I hate that I didn’t love this. The THINGS were there to make this a great one and there were super compelling elements but it just hovered around the “that was alright but I don’t feel much about it” mark as I finished. The writing was high quality though just wished I didn’t feel such a disconnect with the characters. I knew them because of what I was told of them but I didn’t FEEL them. Maybe it was the 3rd person narrative which only really followed Lucy? I don’t typically have a problem with 3rd person so who knows!

I lost interest in this book and did not read it so I cannot write a review. Nonetheless, thank you for the chance to review this book.