{"id":78102,"date":"2025-02-28T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T13:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=78102"},"modified":"2025-02-27T18:56:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T23:56:38","slug":"audio-review-variation-by-rebecca-yarros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=78102","title":{"rendered":"Audio Review: Variation by Rebecca Yarros"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buy:\u00a0 Amazon\u00a0<\/a> |\u00a0 Paperback\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n
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Review<\/b><\/h4>\n

3 stars<\/b><\/p>\n

A complete standalone from Rebecca Yarros, this book is primarily a family drama with a touch of mystery and a slow burning second chance romance. It\u2019s not as emotional or romantic as I was hoping, but I enjoyed this one.<\/p>\n

Hudson and Allie met as teenagers in his small coastal home town, where Allie and her family spent their summers. They became the best of friends, and though they were both in love with the other, they never moved beyond friendship. Their friendship ended in tragedy though, right before Hudson left for military training, and they haven\u2019t seen or spoken to each other since.<\/p>\n

Years later, Allie is an accomplished ballerina who is recovering from a near-career-ending injury and she retreats to her family\u2019s summer home, the town where Hudson still lives as a Coast Guard rescue swimmer. Though they haven\u2019t seen each other for years, it\u2019s clear that from the first moment they see each other that there is still\u00a0something<\/i>\u00a0between them. And when Hudson\u2019s niece shows up at Allie\u2019s door declaring that Allie is her birth mother, they are thrown together in a fake relationship while they work to uncover secrets from the past, while creating more secrets in the present.<\/p>\n

It’s a twisted drama with quite a lot going on, and while I was there for the romance, it definitely takes a back seat to all of the other drama going on.<\/p>\n

\u201cTruth always differs depending on who\u2019s telling the story, and in complicated situations, there are countless variations.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hudson\u2019s niece plays a big part, and a lot of the story focusses on her. I found her a little obnoxious, to be honest, but her journey drives the story forward. Hudson is trying to support her, while dealing with his sister (her adoptive mother\u2026 twisted, right?). At the same time Allie is trying to recover from her injury, while under tremendous pressure from her perfectionist ex-ballerina mother, and there is a lot of talk of ballet, which really didn\u2019t interest me much.<\/p>\n

The whole story behind the fake relationship seemed a bit weak, but I was happy to go along with it for the sake of the love story, which I was desperate for. I\u2019m a romance junkie, and wanted that love story so badly, and though Hudson and Allie do spend time together, they are busy dealing with everything else that\u2019s going on. But we get to see them re-build trust and find their friendship again, while wrestling with their feelings and all of the fake touching and \u2018togetherness\u2019 that comes with a fake relationship. It\u2019s a slow burn as things develop, and there is some sexy time, and though there are some moments of swoon from Hudson, it wasn\u2019t the epic love story that I was hoping for.<\/p>\n

I live in a constant state of wanting you. I have since I was seventeen years old. Wanting you is all I know.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With all of that unfolding, there are still a lot of secrets to uncover, and it did feel a bit much towards the end. I didn\u2019t think that there needed to be quite so many big reveals, especially when some of them (though hinted at through the book) didn\u2019t really impact the overall story at all.<\/p>\n

There were some emotional moments, but given that Rebecca\u2019s books have had me in floods of tears in the past, this one didn\u2019t really hit as much as I was expecting it too.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t love it, but still a good read. 3 stars.<\/p>\n

I listened to this as an audiobook, narrated by Teddy Hamilton and Carly Robins, and they do a great job.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Find more great reads on our\u00a0Rebecca Yarros Author Spotlight<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buy:\u00a0 Amazon\u00a0 |\u00a0 Paperback\u00a0\u00a0 Review 3 stars A complete standalone from Rebecca Yarros, this book is primarily a family drama with a touch of mystery and a slow burning second chance romance. It\u2019s not as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","yasr_overall_rating":3,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[454,52,9,24,29],"tags":[273,48,76],"class_list":["post-78102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio-recommendation","category-drama","category-romance","category-second-chance-romance","category-steamy","tag-rebecca-yarros","tag-review","tag-standalone"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Variation.jpg?fit=200%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gaNL-kjI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/74421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}