Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez

12:14 AM

VirtuosityTitle: Virtuosity
Author: Jessica Martinez
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release: October 18, 2011
Pages: 304
Series: None at this time.
THANKS TO SIMON & SCHUSTER CANADA FOR THE REVIEW COPY.
Synopsis:
Now is not the time for Carmen to fall in love. And Jeremy is hands-down the wrong guy for her to fall for. He is infuriating, arrogant, and the only person who can stand in the way of Carmen getting the one thing she wants most: to win the prestigious Guarneri competition. Carmen's whole life is violin, and until she met Jeremy, her whole focus was winning. But what if Jeremy isn't just hot...what if Jeremy is better?


Carmen knows that kissing Jeremy can't end well, but she just can't stay away. Nobody else understands her--and riles her up--like he does. Still, she can't trust him with her biggest secret: She is so desperate to win she takes anti-anxiety drugs to perform, and what started as an easy fix has become a hungry addiction. Carmen is sick of not feeling anything on stage and even more sick of always doing what she’s told, doing what's expected.

Sometimes, being on top just means you have a long way to fall....
Review:

Since first seeing this book on Goodreads, I had been very curious and intrigued by the summary. The premise seemed unique to me, as I don't read many contemporary books and I don't ever recall reading a book about musicians or music for that matter. So I went into this book with not too many expectations and the few expectations I did have were shattered.

Have you seen the cover for Virtuosity? I really do love this cover art. I love how it features the pink but also the black and white on the cover model. The pose she is doing really makes me think that she might be listening to music and letting it wash over her. I think that the colour theme really made the whole cover come together nicely.

At the moment I do not play an instrument, but Jessica Martinez made it so easy to get into the musical side of the story by using her protagonist, Carmen, to demonstrate a true lover of music who still deals with normal teenage issues. Carmen was very relateable to teenagers as well as being not your average teenager. I liked that the author was able to establish Carmen with a balance of regular and irregular traits for a teenager. As for Jeremy, he was that character that you start off loving to hate, but gradually you realize there is more to him than what you first see. I loved reading about these two and their banter back and forth. The other character that struck a chord with me was Carmen's mother, the overbearing stage mom who was essentially living through her daughter. Altogether, Virtuosity provided the reader with a cast of characters that made you feel for them and what they were going through.

As I said above even if you are not a music lover going into this book, you will like it a lot more after reading it. This is due to the characters and the detailed writing that went into each of them. I enjoyed the writing because you did not have to know anything about music going into the book, it told you what you needed to know as you read. The story was fast moving, grabbing you from the first page and sucking you in until you are fully submerged in Carmen's world. The details and backstory were sucessfully told as the story went along so you did not get as many slow spots in the plot.

Virtuosity was a mixture of music, drama and romance. It mixed all of these components very well to create this awesome novel. With only few drawbacks, I would definitely reccommend this book to any music or book lover. On that note, I give Virtuosity a 5/5 for being an emotional, hard to put down novel.

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1 comments

  1. Oh I love love love the sound of this one. Like you, I really like the cover. I also like the unique premise. Thanks for introducing me to this book.

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