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What I Want You to See by Catherine Linka
Sabine comes from a poor family, so she is overjoyed when she earns a coveted, merit-based scholarship to the prestigious California Institute for the Visual Arts. Once there, she feels isolated, made worse by professor and renowned artist Colin Krell who singles out and ridicules her work. Humiliated and desperate not to lose her scholarship she turns to grad student Adam who secretly shows her Krell's most recent work, which has recently sold for one-million dollars sight unseen, and with which Sabine is immediately enthralled. What she doesn't know is that the simple act of viewing the painting sets her in the middle of a well-orchestrated and dangerous plot.
Review from School Library Journal:
After the death of her mother, Sabine, winner of a coveted full scholarship, is a first-year student at a prestigious California art school, and very attuned to the anxieties and posturing around her. Krell, her potential mentor, has just completed a portrait which sold for a million dollars unseen, but criticizes Sabine's technically impeccable but "light" work. Adam, an older grad student who doubles as nighttime maintenance, convinces her that Krell is a misogynist and didn't support Sabine winning the scholarship. Her anger and vulnerability activated, the two begin a secret, unethical pact for Sabine to study Krell's concealed painting at night. The writing glides effortlessly between the short, fast-paced chapters and interspersed contemplative verbal "sketches" that reveal the layer of pain beneath Sabine's tough exterior. The gripping plot moves within romance and mystery, hovering its lens on Sabine as a painter. Scenes focusing on art slow readers down, but the plot surprises with twists and turns. The austere beauty of the southern California landscape, the contemporary art scene, art school competition, fumbling, and surviving all play a role, as do the dire economic woes and pressures (or lack) of parental support.
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