What I Want You to See by Catherine Linka

What I Want You to See

Kindle Edition

Catherine Linka

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers · Ebook · February 4, 2020

A college freshman is swept into shaky moral territory within the cut-throat world of visual arts in this razor-sharp novel.

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Who it’s for
Artistic ambition, uneasy attraction, and a carefully hidden crime make for tense reading.
Genres
YA Art & Artists, Contemporary YA Romance, Coming of Age
Published
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, February 4, 2020

About this book

A college freshman is swept into shaky moral territory within the cut-throat world of visual arts in this razor-sharp novel. 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.

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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.

Artful Unease

Artistic ambition, uneasy attraction, and a carefully hidden crime make for tense reading.

Come here for

  • Art-school pressure and a charged mentor-student dynamic
  • A secret that turns artistic ambition into moral trouble

Expect

  • A sharp look at approval, imitation, and creative ethics
  • Edgy tension with moral choices that resist easy answers

Where it sits

Contemporary YA Romance85%
YA Art & Artists85%
Coming of Age40%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • YA Art & Artists
  • Coming of Age
  • Homelessness & Poverty for Teens
Authors
Catherine Linka
Publisher
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published
February 4, 2020
Format
Ebook
Reading lane
YA Art & Artists