Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez, life of a musician

Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez
Published by  Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Date published  October 18th 2011
Rating 4/5 stars


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....

my thoughts 

cover: The cover does not really tell me something about this book. Its just nice to look at. The pink-reddish in contrast to the black silhouette. The uk cover is a bit plain and boring for my taste . Just a girl on the cover . she whore that dress in a scene




book: I first saw this on my on one of my favorite blogs as a review book. I looked it up on goodreads and added it to my tbr/wishlist shelf. When i got the galley grab email, i was so exited seeing it downloaded it along with pledge and legacy ,will be reading those soon.


Carmen Bianchi our leading lady  has got it all , fame and fortune and she's only 17 but has social and family issues. I felt for her ,like i wanted to be there as a friend. Her stress and all.


Jeremy King is the romantic intrest. He was not the ''BAD BOY" but not the perfect goody two shoes boyfriend. A normal British young teenage dude ,except being a music prodigy. I think a couple of galls and some guys wil swoon over his british  accent and appearence in their mind, will say this he played rugby imagine those muscles ,droolish. . 


There was no insta-love  I admire that. I like love triangles, but sometimes its overkill and so overdone. This does not have that, triangles i mean. Miss Martinez did not focus much on the romance but more on the coming of age of Carmen and facing her fears. I wanted to know a little bit more bouth Jeremy's life and such


Other than Jeremy and Carmen, my favorite character was Clark, her step dad.  A true father and a fanatic White socks fan. OK  a tad fanatic.


Had no trouble with Jessica's writing and the pasing of virtuosity. Some 50 or so pages were a bit slow but the remaining 100 pages were exiting. The ending was thoroughly good but it was bittersweet.


Was exited for this book cause i always wanted to play the violin but a music instructor said that a drum or a instrument of that sort would be for me.   Something with differentiating music tones  and have small hands for a male , not femine but small hands. When i encountered a classical piece in this book, i looked it up on youtube. Virtuosity gave me a look in the world of musicians and the classical type. Jessica is one, a musician and plays the violin beautifully. Recordings of here are on here site.    JessicaMartinez.com . If you click on it you will here her recordings immediately under tab "Extras".  


NOTE; listened to her recordings while reading Virtuosity to get me in the mood to read her book and i enjoyed it even more.

Virtuosity can be ordered at

Indiebound

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Bookdepository (  ships international)

one of my favorite pieces of Tchaikovsky ~~~~~~ SWAN LAKE~~~~~~~ you probably heard of it before the vid is split in 8 videos.  

  
Part 1/8

part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 Hope ya''l enjoy. Received from the publishers for a honest review