Don't Look Back

Armentrout, J. (2014). Don't look back. NY: Disney-Hyperion. Samantha is the protagonist in Don’t Look Back. In the novel, Samantha and her best friend, Cassie, disappear. Samantha wakes up with no recollection of what happened and Cassie is still missing. Samantha realizes that who ever did this to her wants her to keep quiet, but that’s not enough to keep Samantha from discovering the truth so she can move on with her life. The novel ends with what happened on the night Samantha and Cassie disappeared. Cassie discovers she and Samantha are half sister, and Cassie sets Samantha up to hear the truth by blackmailing Samantha’s father, but he pushes her off a cliff which kills her while Samantha accidentally knocks herself out when she comes out of her hiding spot. I think the intended audience for Don’t Look Back might be for ages 13 to 16. Books that might make good recommendations for follow up reading include Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano, Get Even by Gretchen McNeil, Torn Away by Jennifer Brown, See Me by Wendy Higgins, and The Secrets of Lily Graves by Sarah Strohmeyer. I think Don’t Look Back meets the mental developmental criteria because Samantha temporarily loses her mind when she accidentally knocks herself out and she must go through a period of time before she can remember what really happened on that night. Also, Samantha hallucinates, which adds to her confusion as she tries to reminisce the night she and Cassie disappeared.