The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr (review)

Life changed for sixteen-year-old Lucy Beck-Moreau eight months ago, when she deliberately stepped away from her career as a piano prodigy and quit at the height of an international competition. Since that’s an unforgivable sin to her domineering grandfather (and therefore to the rest of the Beck-Moreaus), her family is largely ignoring Lucy and concentrating on her similarly gifted younger brother, Gus. As Lucy struggles to figure out who she is without music, Gus bonds with his new young teacher, Will, an easygoing and approachable guy. Will is so approachable, in fact, that Lucy finds a friend in him too, beginning to share with him her ambivalence about leaving music. Her confiding in Will gives her space to see that she might be ready to return, but her feelings for Will—married twenty-something Will—are going way past the merely friendly. The ever-capable Zarr creates an utterly believable family in the Beck-Moreaus, with layers of function and dysfunction melding into one another. Lucy is particularly credible in her self-absorption and her attempts to recreate the older male approval she used to receive for her music in Will. Since being responsible for Lucy’s return to the stage would be a feather in his cap, Will, too, is an interestingly complicated character with his mixture of genuine tenderness toward Lucy, self-interest, and a soupçon of lust. Lucy’s life and possibilities may be fascinatingly exotic, but her desire to determine her own path will resonate with teen readers, especially those beginning to question where their own gifts will lead them. Notes will be included in the bound book.