Title: Want
Author: Stephanie Lawton
Genre: Southern Fiction, Romance, Upper YA
Blurb:
Julianne counts the days until she can
pack her bags and leave her old-money, tradition-bound Southern town where
appearance is everything and secrecy is a way of life. A piano virtuoso, she
dreams of attending a prestigious music school in Boston. Failure is not an
option, so she enlists the help of New England Conservatory graduate Isaac
Laroche to help her.
She can’t understand why he suddenly
gave up Boston’s music scene to return to the South. He doesn’t know her life
depends on escaping it. Julianne must face down madness from without, just as
it threatens from within. Isaac must resist an inappropriate attraction, but an
indiscretion at a Mardi Gras ball—the pinnacle event for Mobile’s elite—forces
their present wants and needs to collide with sins of the past.
My Review:
A
powerful masterpiece, exploring tough issues, sweet love, and high stakes…
Julianne
has worked hard her entire life, practicing her piano to get into New England
Conservatory, to leave behind the abuse, depression, and dysfunction of her
southern home. When her teacher falls ill, she meets Issac, his young nephew
and a recent grad of the same school she desires so much. The only problem is,
she starts to desire Issac as well. His brooding mystery lures her in. She’s
not the only one with psychological problems.
As
a professional musician that once auditioned at the New England Conservatory myself,
I found this story to be very interesting and very real. The main character,
Julianne is moody like your average teenager, but as the story progresses, you
start to learn why. She has some big problems: an abusive mom, a distant dad,
an urge to cut her arms to feel pain and release, and the possibility that
she’s inherited her mother’s psychotic traits. She is a very brave girl who
stands at the edge of an abyss. Only music can save her, but can she overcome
her emotional difficulties to become a great pianist, or will it all end in a
tragic train wreck?
Issac
is a mystery that I kept turning pages over to solve. Why did he leave the
prestigious music scene in Boston? How does he feel about his new student, ten
years his junior? When the truth finally comes out, it’s shocking! Boy, did it
keep me reading. Phew! The relationship between Julianne and Issac is
tumultuous, yet they can teach each other so much. As Mr. Cline puts is so
eloquently when talking to Julianne, “You are the student he needs and he is
the teacher you need.”
Dave
is another story, so sweet, hilarious, if not a little potty mouthed, and
always there for Julianne. I wondered if she’d ever see him for who he really
was. The love triangle kept me turning page after page! I had no idea how it
would turn out until the very last page, which shows how good a writer
Stephanie Lawton is.
Want
by Stephanie Lawton is a powerful masterpiece of a story exploring tough
issues, sweet love, and high stakes; a whopper of a coming of age novel.
About the Author:
After collecting a couple English degrees in the Midwest,
Stephanie Lawton suddenly awoke in the deepest reaches of the Deep South.
Culture shock inspired her to write about Mobile, Alabama, her adopted city,
and all the ways Southern culture, history and attitudes seduce the unsuspecting.
A lover of all things gothic, she can often be spotted
photographing old cemeteries, historic buildings and, ironically, the beautiful
beaches of the Gulf Coast. She also has a tendency to psychoanalyze people,
which comes in handy when creating character profiles.
On her thirtieth birthday, she mourned (okay bawled) the fact that
in no way could she still be considered a “young adult,” so she rebelled by
picking up Twilight
and promptly fell in love with Young Adult literature.
She has a love/hate relationship with Mardi Gras –where does
all that money come from?–and can sneeze 18 times in a row.
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1 comment:
Great review!
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