Review: Don't Turn Around

Don't Turn Around by Michelle Gagnon

Published by HarperCollins

Genre: YA contemp/action

$17.99 (US hardcover)

310 pages

  

What it's about: 

Sixteen-year-old Noa has been a victim of the system ever since her parents died. Now living off the grid and trusting no one, she uses her computer-hacking skills to stay safely anonymous and alone. But when she wakes up on a table in an empty warehouse with an IV in her arm and no memory of how she got there, Noa starts to wish she had someone on her side.

Enter Peter Gregory. A rich kid and the leader of a hacker alliance, Peter needs people with Noa's talents on his team. Especially after a shady corporation called AMRF threatens his life in no uncertain terms.

But what Noa and Peter don't realize is that Noa holds the key to a terrible secret, and there are those who'd stop at nothing to silence her for good.


My thoughts:
When I first started reading this book, I couldn't help but think it read like a movie. Then the further I got, the more I thought "huh, I think I've seen this movie before..." so I read all the blurbs on the cover of the book. Someone said that it is a younger version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and whua-la, I figured out what movie I saw that was a lot like this. Then I really hoped that certain things that happened in that movie were not going to show up in this book.

After finishing the book, I don't have much to say about it. I just don't really have an opinion on it. It was just "eh." The book reads as a movie so most of it was action. And I'm not a fan of action movies either. Just like with those, you get a lot of running and close calls, but you never really get to know the characters very well at all. So everything that happened to them, I thought it sucked and felt bad for them, but I never got connected or cared too much. When I got to the last 60 pages and everything was discovered and the characters were starting to do some really stupid things, I got annoyed. The only reason I finished those last pages was that it was only 60 pages but even then, I ended up skimming them. I hate stupid characters and the fact that I didn't have a connection with them, I was just annoyed.

I think the idea of the book was kinda cool, but I dunno. I wasn't invested in it. There was too much action and not enough character developments. I could have gone without reading the book. The only thing I thought was cool about the book was all the computer hacking. There is just something cool and sexy about hackers.

My rating: 7/10