Julianne is 17 years old and a talented pianist from Mobile, Alabama. What she wants most is to get into the New England Conservatory (NEC) in Boston so that she can escape from home. When her piano instructor gets sick, his nephew, Isaac, is hired to help Julianne prepare for the NEC audition. Being an NEC graduate, Isaac knows what it takes and pushes Julianne to play with passion beyond her technical abilities. Through this process, their attraction for one another grows but their 10 year age difference is only one reason they shouldn’t pursue it any further.This is definitely not what I expected b/c I thought it would be a light and fluffy YA. This book was dark at times and full of angst. Julianne has problems and her home life isn’t pretty. Isaac has a past which causes him to have trust issues. These two and their feelings were all over the place and their emotional baggage was very unstable. This had me guessing what the outcome would be and at the end, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Here’s a fitting quote:"All creative people like being weird and moody and need some…unbalance or crisis. The thing that makes us great is the same thing that drags us down."I enjoyed this book and I appreciate all the emotions that this brought out in me. I look forward to reading more books from this author.
