Variation definitely isn’t like the other Rebecca Yarros novels that I’ve read, and I still can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. 

Let me start off with this: this wasn’t a BAD novel. At all. The first half was honestly five stars for me. But the second half’s pacing was all over the place. So, let’s go with the normal “characters, plot, writing” layout for the review and I’ll tell y’all how I felt about it.

The characters in this novel honestly made a ton of questionable decisions. I really didn’t like Caroline. Juniper felt like the product of bad parenting (the absolute disregard and disrespect for authority was insane). Don’t even get me started on Allie’s sisters or her mother. Eva was a nightmare of a sister. Anne wasn’t terrible but not memorable at all. And my gosh, Allie’s mother? That lady takes the cake. She was a villain just to be a villain and I felt like she was too one-dimensional for me (I want my villains to have depth!!). With Hudson and Allie, they were honestly the only ones who felt developed as characters (besides maybe Juniper, but she annoyed the heck out of me 😅). 

With Hudson, he had his hopes and dreams and his little quirks, but his personality was honestly lacking for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love a guy who is madly in love with the female lead. What I don’t like, though, is when that becomes his whole personality. Dude was at the point of obsession if you asked me. With Allie, at least, you could tell that there were other things driving her life. She had ballet. She had her sisters. Then she had Hudson. It wasn’t all about Hudson all the time even though she was clearly in love with him. I guess, overall for the characters, I wish they had been a little more developed. 

With the plot, the beginning was good and had a great setup, but I honestly would have like scenes from when Allie and Hudson were younger rather than a ton of the scenes from present day that didn’t really impact the story that much. This book would have been great as a dual timeline with past and present colliding towards the end. This is probably one time where I would say I didn’t like the linear timeline. 

With the ending for this book, the plot was ALL OVER THE PLACE. One second I was thinking that one person was Juniper’s dad and then the next it was another. To be completely honest, I’m still not sure who 100% her father was or why that specific person was her father (if you read the book, you’d know what I’m talking about). 

Rebecca Yarros’ writing style is beautiful as ever, but it just doesn’t make up for the lack of character development and rushed-feeling last quarter of the book. There’s not much else I want to say that won’t spoil it, so I’ll stop here.

Spoilers ahead.

So, I think Juniper’s dad is Vasily? And I think Lina slept with him because her mother told her to in order to get a ballet part? The reason these sentences all end in question marks is because I honestly don’t know if it’s true. Not because I didn’t read the book, but because the ending got really confusing. Not to mention, there were scenes that literally were not needed. Her mother having dementia? Not needed. Hudson and Allie breaking up for honestly no reason? Not needed. It just felt like Rebecca Yarros rushed through Variation to get a new book out. 

Overall, while I enjoyed the beginning of this novel, the ending was too jumbled for me to even appreciate. I would give this a solid 3/5 stars. Still a decent romance with pretty good spicy scenes, but with under-developed characters and a rushed-feeling plot, it definitely wasn’t my favorite. 

Source: Audiobook from Audible

(P.S. You can read this book for free by signing up for a free trial of Everand, which gives you three free audiobooks or ebooks of your choice!)