Sketchy by Olivia Samms

Image Credit: Olivia Samms/The Daily Quirk

Sketchy by Olivia Samms, pub. 2013, 238 pg.
Rating: 5/5 stars

When I first cracked open Sketchy by Olivia Samms, I didn’t know what to expect, but within the first few pages, I was hooked.

Sketchy’s plot revolves around sharp and spunky Bea Washington. Bea, newly released from a drug rehab program, is preparing to start life at a new school. Unlike most high school seniors, however, Bea has a gift: she can see and draw what other people are thinking. This gift leads her down a dark path as someone begins to sexually assault and murder girls from her town, and Bea may be the only one who can find the rapist after accidentally seeing (and drawing) his only surviving victim’s thoughts.

Let me just start off by saying I was enthralled by this book from the first page on and couldn’t set it down until I’d finished it. I love a good mystery, and this one had a fantastic combination of action, humor and suspense that was completely gripping and made me keep turning pages to find out what happened next. All of the elements blended perfectly to create a book that kept me on the edge of my seat. There were points where I literally had to remind myself to breathe because I was so caught up in the action, and there were other moments where I got odd looks from people when a line or two caused me to burst out laughing.

Bea is now one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. To put it simply: she kicks ass. She is a strong and independent person who doesn’t let other people define her. In fact, she takes pride in the fact that she isn’t like everyone else. She realizes her mistakes and owns up to them, but she also doesn’t back down when she knows she’s right. There were so many moments where she talked her way into situations I would avoid like the plague, and she was constantly proving that she could take care of herself in just about any scenario. Her sharp and often sarcastic brand of humor was right up my alley, and her witty comebacks had me constantly cracking up.

I loved Bea’s humor, and I found it pretty essential to the book. Obviously a plot that revolves around violent crime is pretty dark and gets creepy at times, but her sense of humor and some comic relief from her friends did a really good job of lightening up the less serious parts of the story. Without her jokes and sarcasm, Bea would have been a pretty prickly character, but her humor made her easy to relate to.

In addition to Bea’s sense of humor, her “gift” also drew me in (oh my gosh, sorry for that pun). READ THE FULL REVIEW AT THE DAILY QUIRK!