A review by missprint
The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr
2.0
I have the overwhelming sense that this is a book I was supposed to love. That everyone in the book world community will love it; it will have a blurb in the NYT book review, and it'll be one of the spring It books for realistic fiction. But the truth is, reading it gave me this icky, slimy sensation, like tolerating a slug on my leg for an extended period of time.
I can't say what it was specifically. The relationship between Lucy and Will was definitely part of it: not only was it inappropriate, but the inappropriateness is never addressed. A lot of the relationships in the book are well built up - Lucy and Reyna, Lucy and Gus, Lucy and her grandfather and her mother - but it felt like Zarr sort of dropped the ball toward the end, in terms of emotional depth.
I can't articulate it in whole, but my feeling, overall, after reading this book was a big fat "blerg."
I can't say what it was specifically. The relationship between Lucy and Will was definitely part of it: not only was it inappropriate, but the inappropriateness is never addressed. A lot of the relationships in the book are well built up - Lucy and Reyna, Lucy and Gus, Lucy and her grandfather and her mother - but it felt like Zarr sort of dropped the ball toward the end, in terms of emotional depth.
I can't articulate it in whole, but my feeling, overall, after reading this book was a big fat "blerg."