Plenty of Phoebe’s wry meditations on adolescence, motherhood, music and art are incisive and wise — above all, her puzzlement over the universal riddle of friendship: its magic, its vagaries; how it can first seem to save us but later evanesce, with no one quite understanding why — perhaps simply because our natures morph and diverge, inexplicably yet as inevitably as rivers, to find their own ways.
At its best, The Phoebe Variations is a compassionate work in which Hamilton conveys pivotal events, acknowledging that the people involved in them have completely different viewpoints ... It’s terrific stuff and, on a sentence-by-sentence basis, The Phoebe Variations is shimmering and beautiful ... The shape of Phoebe Variations can be off-putting, though ... Occasionally loses its way. Sometimes, we’re not sure why Phoebe is sharing information with us or whether it’s adding up to anything ... Hamilton gets us to a satisfying place, after a few narrative wobbles ... The last chapter is a stunner.
Keenly inspired by classic myths and the dark radiance of Charlotte Brontë, Hamilton...tells a breathtaking, surprising, and traumatic coming-of-age story ... Once again, Hamilton is exceptionally nuanced and enthralling, profound and funny in this gorgeously written modern fairy tale.
Charming .. Hamilton displays a natural touch in her characterizations, especially Greta’s struggle to find the right way to be open with Phoebe about Phoebe’s birth family and Luna’s competitiveness with boys, which add dimension to the entertaining tale. The author has another winner on her hands.