Review: Sketchy by Olivia Samms

Publisher: Skyscape
Source: Won in Giveaway
Pages: 238
Series: Bea Catcher Chronicles #1
Release Date: April 30, 2013

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The first book in a series about 17 year old Bea Washington, an edgy, charismatic outsider and recovering addict, who discovers that with her new-found sobriety, she has a disturbing new ?skill? ? an ability to see, and draw, people's thoughts. Alarmingly, these visions are only getting stronger and increasing in frequency. As another girl in school is raped and left for dead, Bea must come to terms with her talent, learn to face her own truth, and try to help identify and stop the killer before he strikes again.

As soon as I read the synopsis, I knew I needed to read this book as soon as possible. I think that the ability to be able to draw images from people's minds is really freakin awesome! Like, why can't I do that?! I finished this book in less than 24 hours.. That's how good it was. I NEVER read books in that short of time. NEVER.

The main character's name is Bea. She's the kind of girl that you wouldn't want your kids to be friends with. She was an alcoholic, a drug addict, and she was an intense party-goer. But things happened, and she decided that it was time for a change. Now she is three months clean however, she still has to deal with the consequences of her past actions. She must take drug tests, which her mom does by making her pee in a cup, as well as attend AA meetings. However now that she is clean, she has started to be able to draw these things from people's minds. 

I absolutely love Bea as a character. Sure she has a lot of flaws as well of things that she is ashamed of, but that's what happens in real life. I was able to feel emotions that she was feeling because her characters emotions were so real. In the book, we see her struggling with herself as well as other people. She does do some really questionable things in the book, but she has good intentions and I think that this makes her a great heroine. However I hated not knowing more about her thoughts. What exactly was going through her head? I can't wait to be able to read more about her and see her grow in the following books.

One thing that I really enjoyed was the fact that Bea's parents were actually present throughout the book. Her parents were there to call her all the time and bug her. Her parents were there to tell her when she was messing up. Her parents were there to support her. HER PARENTS WERE THERE. There are a lot of books where the parents are no where in the whole book. There are many reasons as to why they don't show up in the books. The parents are either dead, alcoholics, workaholics, or just out of town. I think that this is awful. Maybe they do this so the main character can do whatever they please which maybe could make the book more interesting. Or maybe the author was too lazy or was trying to avoid having to write about even more characters and also writing about a child-parents relationship. Who knows. All I know is that I LOVED having Bea's parents as a part of this st0ry.

The power that Bea has is really awesome, as I stated above. I would absolutely love to be able to have this ability. Of course it will always have a down side to it because you may see some things that you really don't want to, but it could also be a really great thing to have at the same time. Bea holds the key to solving the missing piece of the puzzle in this book and I feel like having this ability could help a lot of a person in real life was actually able to have this ability.

Overall I really enjoyed this book a lot. It was one of those "MUST. READ. MORE. WHO. NEEDS. SLEEP." books. Hahah.