Sketchy, by Olivia Samms, is the first book of the Bea Catcher Chronicles and will be published April 30, 2013.  Rating: 3/5

*This is book #5/75 for my 2013 book challenge. It also counts as book #2 for my “New Authors” group-challenge. You can take a look at my different reading challenges here.

Please Note: I received a free e-galley of this book courtesy of Net Galley and Amazon Children’s Publishing. It is an uncorrected proof, and so some details may have been changed prior to publication. The following review is entirely my own view, and receiving this e-galley has not changed my opinion in any way.

A popular cheerleader—raped, beaten, and left for dead. An edgy outsider with a gift. Can they team up to catch a killer?

Bea’s life has been a mess ever since she got kicked out of private school and sent to rehab. Now clean, Bea is starting over at Packard High School, in a city shaken from two assaults on young women. The latest victim, Willa Pressman—the one who survived—doesn’t remember a thing. But Bea has a disturbing new “skill”: she can see—and then draw—images from other people’s minds. And when she looks at Willa, Bea is shocked by what she sketches. Bea might be the only one who knows Willa’s secrets—and who can take down the killer before he strikes again.

I’m not sure how to start this one, to be honest. I started out really intrigued. Here we have a newly sober addict who has visions when she draws, which translates onto her sketchbook. This is a talent that she does not understand, and one that confuses her, yet she begins to use it to her advantage to help a classmate who has been raped and left for dead. I was really hoping that this talent of hers would be explored more in this book, but it seems as though the author decided to hold off on doing so until the sequel. Which, speaking of, there is no news yet as to how many books will be in the Bea Catcher Chronicles.

All of the characters just kind of fell flat for me. There wasn’t any real development between any of them, I felt, and I didn’t care about what happened. I think that’s what’s making this book so difficult to review. It just sort of existed to me. It wasn’t bad by any means, and at times the writing was quite good, but that’s about it. I felt Bea to be infuriating most times in her interactions with others and her poor decisions. Which made it so disappointing, because she was kind of a bad ass bitch that I would really love to be friends with. I felt like a lot of situations were completely farfetched. For example, at one point Bea’s school is in lockdown, yet when Bea and her art class come back from a field trip they bring the students into a school. When a school is in a lockdown no one gets in, and no one gets out. It made absolutely no sense, and I felt myself thinking that about several things in the book. There were also times when the author brought a tragic or traumatic event into the book but it wasn’t even seen through, and it came across more as a filler to me than anything else. Though, I’m sure it was meant to get the readers to relate or feel for certain characters in different ways. I’m hoping that this will all tie together better in the sequel.

Again, speaking of sequels, I don’t know as of now that I will be reading it. While it would be nice to learn more about her talents, which was hinted at coming from her father, everything else had enough closure that I don’t feel the need or desire to continue reading the series. I am looking forward to seeing what the sequel will be about, and hoping that it sounds just as intriguing as the first. Perhaps then I will change my mind about reading it.

If you’re interested in reading the book, it will be published on April 30th, 2013.

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If you’re interested in reading my GoodReads updates from this book you can do so here. I must say, they’re quite entertaining. It will tell you exactly what I was thinking on certain pages.