Thank you so, so much to Fantastic Flying Book Club for hosting this blog tour and having me on it! Posting way later than usual, but it’s here and will be up here longer to make up for that time lost. I appreciate you all being so patient with me while I’ve been trying to recover from some really nasty illnesses. Don’t forget to click on the banner for more information on the tour, and to see what other tours are coming up with FFBC soon.
Winning a scholarship to California’s most prestigious art school seems like a fairy tale ending to Sabine Reye’s awful senior year. After losing both her mother and her home, Sabine longs for a place where she belongs.
But the cutthroat world of visual arts is nothing like what Sabine had imagined. Colin Krell, the renowned faculty member whom she had hoped would mentor her, seems to take merciless delight in tearing down her best work—and warns her that she’ll lose the merit-based award if she doesn’t improve.
Desperate and humiliated, Sabine doesn’t know where to turn. Then she meets Adam, a grad student who understands better than anyone the pressures of art school. He even helps Sabine get insight on Krell by showing her the modern master’s work in progress, a portrait that’s sold for a million dollars sight unseen.
Sabine is enthralled by the portrait; within those swirling, colorful layers of paint is the key to winning her inscrutable teacher’s approval. Krell did advise her to improve her craft by copying a painting she connects with . . . but what would he think of Sabine secretly painting her own version of his masterpiece? And what should she do when she accidentally becomes party to a crime so well -plotted that no one knows about it but her?
Complex and utterly original, What I Want You to See is a gripping tale of deception, attraction, and moral ambiguity.
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Catherine Linka is the author of the young adult novel WHAT I WANT YOU TO SEE as well as the dystopian series A GIRL CALLED FEARLESS and A GIRL UNDONE. A GIRL CALLED FEARLESS was an ABA Indie Next Pick and won the Young Adult Novel Award 2014 from the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association. A frequent speaker at writing and teen conferences, Catherine received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and worked as a young adult book buyer for an independent bookstore for seven years. Prior to pursuing a career in publishing, she studied international politics at Georgetown University followed by a master’s degree in business at the University of North Carolina. Catherine is married and lives with her husband in the San Gabriel foothills. Visit her at http://www.catherlinelinka.com.
Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Fantastic Flying Book Club, Netgalley, and Disney-Hyperion for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.
Okay.
At first, this book gave me vibes that reminded me about that movie with Hilary Duff in it where she goes to some arts school or something? You know what I’m talking about, right?
Well, anyway.
The background on this novel with how much really goes into the arts and how intense things can be in that world. Not even just the technical aspect of art – because while it may look like art is subjective and should be able to be whatever it wants to be – but even the educational part and some of the competition that they have to deal with is pretty intense as it is.
Then you add the crime aspect that wow, I definitely wasn’t planning on that at all, and you have a novel that just went above and beyond what you would probably think this was about. It was… wow I know I said the word “intense” a whole lot, but that’s the feeling that I had with this novel, and Sabine is just someone that I couldn’t help but feel pulled towards throughout this entire novel.
Time to share some of the quotes that really stuck with me while I was reading this novel. Hope you enjoy my selections.
Mom has been like a second mother to the twins, and this was how Iona treated her?
I would do anything for my mother, and I know that I feel very very upset when people don’t treat my mom like the queen that she is and has always has been. So this line really stuck with me because whenever my mom basically bends over backward for people that don’t appreciate all of the sacrifices she has made for them, it makes me so angry that they are just taking advantage of her.
Until then, create!
This may not have been said by one of my favorite characters or anything, but that line just makes me want to get more in touch with the creative side that I wish I had. I guess some of my reviews can count as being creative, right? It’s hard to write a review sometimes. And to make sure that I keep my voice in all of my reviews, allow myself to show some sort of emotion in my reviews for those that really make me feel something strong. I’m going to include it.
My feelings blinded me, and only now am I starting to see clearly.
While this line was specifically about some of the situations that Sabine got herself in, I could honestly feel myself in this one. I don’t know how many times I’ll let my feelings about something get in the way of what’s really going on, or what decisions that I really need to make. Especially when I was younger, and I let my feelings run wild. I pull it in more nowadays, but I know there have been times where I want to revert back to my old self and just let my feelings dictate my behavior. *sigh* if only. But I like being able to see clearly without having my own personal feelings get in the way of how I’m going to react to someone, at least for the most part.
Yay! I finally got this up on my blog. Ugh it took me way too long especially since I have still been trying to recover from the ER visit. It sucks sometimes, but I’m glad that I’m semi-back and ready to do what I love doing the most. Which is all things books! Stay tuned for some more blog tours coming up the pipeline on my blog, and I ‘ll be posting my January update for State of the ARC and #ARCApocalypse. I think you’ll be surprised by how much progress I got to make at the beginning of the year.
Sometimes Leelynn Reads 