Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Don't Turn Around
    Don't Turn Around
    Don't Turn Around
    Audiobook8 hours

    Don't Turn Around

    Written by Michelle Gagnon

    Narrated by Merritt Hicks

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    In Michelle Gagnon’s debut YA thriller, Don’t Turn Around, computer hacker Noa Torson is as smart, tough, and complex as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Lisbeth Salander.
     
    The first in a trilogy, Don’t Turn Around’s intricate plot and heart-pounding action will leave readers desperate for book two.
     
    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 hacking skills to stay anonymous and alone. But when she wakes up on a table in a 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 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.
     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateAug 28, 2012
    ISBN9780062227706
    Author

    Michelle Gagnon

    Michelle Gagnon has worked as a bartender, dog walker, Russian supper club performer, model, personal trainer, and writer. She lives in San Francisco.

    Related to Don't Turn Around

    Titles in the series (3)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Children's Action & Adventure For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Also Out

      Mar 23, 2022

      We enjoyed previous Sarah Lotz books like The Three, so we were surprised that her latest looks like a simple love story. However, Amazon has IMPOSSIBLE (out now, Harper Collins) filed under “romance time travel”… A pleasure moon is the setting of Kh

      1 min read

    • Article

      4 Delightful New Books For Middle-grade Readers

      Jun 7, 2018

      History, fantasy, humor, and drama mingle in these four wonderful new books for middle-grade readers – out just in time for summer reading.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Great Reads

      Aug 9, 2019

      By Chandler Baker Sloane, Ardie, Grace, and Rosalita have worked at Truviv, Inc. for years. The sudden death of Truviv’s CEO means their boss, Ames, will likely take over the entire company. Each of the women has a different relationship with Ames,

      1 min read

    • Article

      Focus On The Negative

      Aug 6, 2020

      Focus On The Negative
      9 min read

    • Article

      Quantum Radio

      Feb 22, 2023

      Quantum Radio
      5 min read

    • Article

      Rent Arlington Hall’s Brain: The implant would make him a brilliant pianist for 24 hours.

      Jan 15, 2015

      Eight Hours To Go Thorne hesitated. The clinic’s storefront consisted of a glass elevator that went only down. Below the earth, into the unknown. A sign on its door read in elegant silver script: “Rent a Brain Today, Genius Guaranteed.” Thorne could

      14 min read

    • Article

      Pleasure Palace

      Sep 1, 2022

      Pleasure Palace
      15 min read

    • Article

      A Cardiologist’s 9/11 Story

      Sep 13, 2018

      The morgue was inside Brooks Brothers. I was standing at the corner of Church and Dey, right next to the rubble of the World Trade Center, when a policeman shouted that doctors were needed at the menswear emporium inside the building at One Liberty P

      14 min read

    • Article

      The Plagues Steph Cha

      Sep 29, 2020

      The Plagues Steph Cha
      9 min read

    • Article

      Where There Is No Hospital

      Mar 8, 2022

      Where There Is No Hospital
      15 min read

    • Article

      O Fortuna, Velut Luna

      Sep 15, 2018

      What is Miss Treece’s trouble, according to a popular notion? The man A has failed to show up. Arousing herself at the restaurant, she fixes her lipstick when her solo supper concludes and takes herself down the stairs situated behind the bar. There,

      3 min read

    • Article

      Equinox

      May 18, 2022

      In this strange world, where identities change with the rising and setting of the sun, supernatural forces are at work – and they’re causing trouble… St Leonars prison was an appropriately imposing building. It rose out of the surrounding shacks and

      5 min read

    • Article

      Wait Times

      Mar 29, 2021

      Wait Times
      16 min read

    • Article

      Why These Children Fell into Endless Sleep

      Sep 22, 2021

      I had barely stepped foot over the threshold and I already felt claustrophobic. I wanted to turn back. People shuffled into the room in front of me, while somebody else stood directly behind me, a little too close. It felt hard to escape. I could see

      12 min read

    • Article

      Pneumadectomy

      Jan 10, 2022

      Rolly stood for a few minutes in the shade of the large oak, just out of sight of the boys gathered on the dry shaven green of the bowls club. All aged around eleven like himself, they were dividing up their meager numbers for a game of soccer, knowi

      10 min read

    • Article

      In Love And War

      Jun 10, 2021

      April 1943 - Krakow, Poland Irena was bent over her needlework, stitching the frayed seam of her skirt when she heard a single gunshot ring out. She jerked and then scowled. After four years of war, she ought to be used to it. Why, the other night a

      11 min read

    • Article

      Performance

      Nov 10, 2022

      “Wait here,” the guard said as he shut the door behind him, leaving me by myself. The floor inside the lab was polished, and the air smelled of disinfectant, and yet the room felt unclean. Leaves shook on a tree outside the window, making shadows on

      18 min read

    • Article

      Angel Lust

      Jan 25, 2022

      Angel Lust
      8 min read

    • Article

      Dark Tales

      Dec 2, 2021

      Dark Tales
      6 min read

    • Article

      Blended

      Aug 6, 2020

      Blended
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Bargain

      Dec 10, 2022

      “Which one of you owns G2V3889?” Cygnus glided through a luminescent star field suspended in the center of an otherwise dark, oblong studio, then turned in a slow circle to survey the twenty Agents surrounding him. “Come on, speak up.” Vega shuddered

      16 min read

    • Article

      Mothers As Makers Of Death

      Aug 14, 2018

      Mothers As Makers Of Death
      8 min read

    • Article

      Where There's Smoak There's Fire

      May 19, 2023

      What do you think it is about Evan that appeals to readers? As Jack told Evan from the very beginning when he was a scrawny twelve-year-old kid: “The hard part won't be making you a killer. The hard part will be keeping you human.” The latter is Evan

      2 min read

    • Article

      Two-Percenters

      Mar 10, 2022

      Reginah stared at the crystal vial her friend Twylea had laid on her desk. A gentle light bloomed within the desk’s frosty surface, illuminating the liquid sealed in the vial in shades of lavender. “Go on,” she prompted. Twylea could be annoyingly sl

      14 min read

    • Article

      The Ladies Book Club

      Apr 10, 2024

      “Our brains are shaped with the capability to care deeply but also to kill. This deep ambivalence is potentially problematic. A society filled with people who are inherently very compassionate and very violent might prove unstable.”1 1Emile Bruneau,

      25 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Don't Turn Around

    4/5

    110 ratings23 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      As they say this was a thrill ride, no really I really liked it. It reads like I was watching a movie. I could see and feel the urgency of the scenes. Of course the thing the book has over watching on a screen whether big or small is that I was able to get into the character's head. I knew what drives them and makes them tick.

      The suspense, mystery and adventure Noa and Peter encountered in the story, separately and eventually together made me nervous, and captivated. I thought the concept and storytelling were great. A really good nail biting read.
    • 3/5
      booknook — Young Adult book reviewsA Young Adult sci-fi thriller book for computer nerds. YESSSS!! Where have you been all my life?If you read my blog regularly or if you've at least seen my Bitchin' Book Blog section, you probably know that I'm a huge computer nerd. I love coding websites, I love learning PHP (but I'm still a noob), I love watching my boyfriend write out complex code stuff that goes way over my head (I think it's sexy), and I was one of only two people who signed up for the Computer Science class in high school. Hi, my name is Ashley and I'm a computer nerd. Don't Turn Around called to me!This book is insane. There's conspiracy, crazy scary medical procedures, hacking, evil guys in suits, more hacking, and more hacking. It's awesome O_O The cool thing about this book is that it keeps you guessing. It's classified as a "mystery" because the whole point of the book is trying to figure out WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!! The main characters Noa and Peter have to hack into web servers to steal information, then try to decipher that information, and figure out who the hell is trying to kill/capture them!As a computer nerd, there were a few things about this book that didn't quite fit that I couldn't ignore. Most people probably won't be bothered by these things, but as a computer nerd who has a boyfriend with leet programming/web developing skills, they were small details that irked me. :P They just made the story a little less believable for me, but anyone who's less of a nerd than I am probably wouldn't notice! Really, I'm just nit-picking. So just keep in mind that these will probably only jump out at you if you're really into computer stuff!1) Noa uses a MacBook Pro for all her hacking.It's perfectly possible to hack with a Mac, but it's certainly not the norm. Most hackers use Linux because it gives them more control over the operating system.2) Noa didn't immediately recognize "WoW" as "World of Warcraft."Any teenage computer nerd would immediately know what WoW means, especially when said in context ("It's the name of my avatar in WoW"). Noa didn't seem to know what it was at all, and even when Peter explained it was World of Warcraft, she clearly wasn't that familiar with it, although she was at least able to identify it as "a video game". WoW is huge in the online community. Even if computer nerds don't play it, they all know what it is!3) Apparently Noa had never heard of a domain name being stolen.This happens all the time in the online world. It can be done a variety of different ways, the most common probably being social engineering. I'm not even a hacker and I've seen this happen to websites I work with many times.Okay, that's enough of my nit-picking! Other than a few details, this book had some really interesting computer elements that I loved! I was fascinated by the Anonymous references, because I know some people who have gotten involved in hacktivism. And if you don't know much about it, you'll probably love reading about it. It's interesting stuff! It's all about people who 'voice' their political opinions through internet hacking, which includes defacing 'evil' corporation websites, organizing denial-of-service attacks, hacking into private servers to leak information that they feel should be made available to the public, etc. It's illegal... but interesting.Don't Turn Around was actually a huge surprise for me, because it took a really unexpected direction.. but I loved it! I thought it was going to be all about computers and hacking and conspiracies, but I had no idea that Michelle Gagnon was going to throw viruses into the mix! It kind of came out of nowhere, but it was great! I love books and movies about viruses. That's probably why I like dystopian books so much, because they're so often about viruses killing off the population and society having to rebuild. Don't Turn Around combined my two loves: computers and viruses (but not the computer kind of viruses! LOL!).So why the three stars? Although I liked the characters, I never got hugely invested in them. I almost don't even know how to explain it. I just felt a little distanced. There is also a lack of romance. I'm the kind of girl who likes a little bit of romance in all my books, and Don't Turn Around was missing that. Finally, the ending wasn't very satisfying. I didn't feel like there was much closure or resolution. I was left with more questions than answers and that frustrated me. I will definitely be reading the rest of the series when it comes out, because I'm dying to find out what happens, but I would have liked more of a wrap-up at the end of this book.I loved this quote!! It's kind of funny, but it totally resonated with me!"You want to touch another hacker's computer?" She arched an eyebrow. "I know, I know," he said, grinning. "We don't know each other all that well yet, so it's early to be sharing computers—"[..]Noa was loath to let anyone else touch her computer. It was kind of a geek thing, the way chefs brought their own knives to work. No one else handled the tools of your trade. —Don't Turn Around, Page 222When I see someone else on my computer, it's like someone is looking into my soul. I feel naked and exposed. I feel like I need to supervise their browsing, or whatever it is they're doing on my computer. It's not that I have things to hide, it's just that it makes me feel uncomfortable. My boyfriend is the only person I allow on my computer unattended, lol!
    • 5/5
      Great book! Not draggy. Was worried at first because it was 2 teens that it would be a teen/tween book but no. The dialog is adult. The premise is interesting. Will definitely read subsequent books in the series.
    • 4/5
      It reminded me a bit of the movie The Net. What a great read. Noa rocks!
    • 4/5
      From the time Noa wakes up on an operating table in a warehouse with an incision in her chest until the final page, the excitement doesn't let up in this heart-pounding beginning of a trilogy. Gagnon's website describes it as a technothriller.Noa is a victim of the foster care system. She came to foster care after the death of her parents and she rotated between The Center and a variety of foster home placements before running away at the age of fifteen. Noa is a very skilled computer hacker and is doing all right for herself, having created a mythical foster family and an identity as an adult who works freelance. She manages, with great difficulty, to escape from the warehouse but a huge tech savvy organization is after her and she doesn't know why.Peter, on the other hand, is the privileged son of indifferent parents. He is also a hacker who has formed an organization that exposes child pornographers, research using animals, and other abuses. When he is looking through some of his father's files one day he stumbles upon some information that draws the notice of the same tech savvy organization. Before that he contacts Noa, who he only knows online, to help research the organization. Pretty soon Peter is on the run too.They soon learn that the organization is looking for a cure for a new disease - PEMA - which primarily attacks teenagers and works like chronic wasting disease in deer. This organization is snatching street kids from the streets to perform experiments on them that are almost always fatal. Noa seems to be the only exception which makes her even more wanted by the organization.The story was really fast-paced and everyone will want to read the sequel - DON'T LOOK NOW - to find out what happens next. I enjoyed the story and recommend it to adventure lovers.
    • 4/5
      Don't Turn Around was the first book I'd read by Michelle Gagnon, and I really liked it. Noa wakes up in an unfamiliar room surrounded by the trappings of a hospital. How did she get here? Was she in an accident? As her mind starts to clear, she realizes she isn't in a hospital at all, but she does have a huge incision scar from an operation she doesn't remember needing. When the doctors and nurses all lie to her about where she is, Noa knows that she has to escape.

      Inspired by the death of his brother and his less than honest parents, Peter builds an internet organization called /ALLIANCE/ for the purpose of tracking down those who hurt others, especially children. After his most recent hack, Peter's house is invaded by a man named Mr. Mason who warns Peter to stop what he is doing or his family will suffer.

      When Peter and Noa meet, it is clear that Mr. Mason is part of the same organization that Noa is running from. They join forces and start looking for ways to prove that runaways and orphans are being taken to be used as guinea pigs for experimentation.

      This is a very good book with an intriguing mystery, well drawn characters, and lots of action. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.
    • 4/5
      Fast-paced and surprising with interesting, realistic-enough main characters. I would probably have given it 5 stars if it had given me closure.
    • 3/5
      Terrible cover, but the book was fun with two plucky kids escaping and hacking the Man (or at least a big evil medical experiment conspiracy) It takes place in Boston/Cambridge/Brookline and the author knows the locations. I'd read another one if she keeps going...
    • 4/5
      As they say this was a thrill ride, no really I really liked it. It reads like I was watching a movie. I could see and feel the urgency of the scenes. Of course the thing the book has over watching on a screen whether big or small is that I was able to get into the character's head. I knew what drives them and makes them tick.

      The suspense, mystery and adventure Noa and Peter encountered in the story, separately and eventually together made me nervous, and captivated. I thought the concept and storytelling were great. A really good nail biting read.
    • 4/5
      Noa is a young woman who has spent most of her life in foster care and occasional stints at juvie. Along the way she managed to learn computer hacking and has set up a fictional family online to allow her to exist on her own. She did support work for a computer company to create a nest egg. Her skills were such that the company didn't mind ever seeing her in person. Everything went upside down, however, when she woke up one day on an operating table with no memory of how she got there. A healing scar on her abdomen was troubling. She managed to escape but now has to live in hiding, tough to do in today's connected world.Peter is a young man, also with great computer skills, who is curious about a program he couldn't break called Persefone into that he found on his father's computer. He gets in contact with Noa and the two of them get involved in a sinister story of human experimentation and exploitation of orphaned youths.The audio version of this book is narrated by Merritt Hicks who did a good job of it. The only gripe I had was that she didn't pause one iota when the action shifted from one character to another. It was no problem since The characters' names were given before confusion could set in.Likened to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, parallels include computer hacking, foster care, and a good amount of action. An independent and highly intelligent young woman takes on an evil corporation.
    • 4/5
      I've read all her adult mysteries so I thought I'd give her first foray into YA fiction a try. Plus it's a thriller and it's set in Boston.The two main characters are Noa and Peter, they're both teens and both hackers, but after that their lives are quite disparate. Noa's a foster kid and has been for most of her life, while Peter is a private school kid who lives in a posh neighborhood, and he's a guy who's getting read to be a Legacy at Harvard. Still, their lives come crashing together.Noa wakes up on a gurney and finds she's lost weeks of her life. Meanwhile Peter snoops in his father's stuff and searches for the wrong thing online and he gets a visit from quite the goon squad. And so the thriller starts for both of them.And it is a pretty good thriller. I was never quite sure when they'd be caught vs. when they'd get away, not to mention who would die and who would survive.There was also quite the diverse set of characters in the story, and each of them was unique. I especially liked Cody, and I thought the relationship between Amanda and Peter was something that isn't often seen in especially YA books, and older girl and younger guy in a relationship.Then there was Boston, and the surrounding area. I just don't get how she gets nearly everything about Boston fine, calling it the T instead of the MTA (a different story set in Boston did that over and over, drove me crazy) and heck, she even used the word wicked in the correct New England way in the beginning, and yet, she did one of my pet peeves. She had Noa, who had supposedly grown in and around Boston think, "She didn't know this section of Boston well... Cambridge was dominated by the Harvard Campus". (pg. 98). Well, duh, of course they wouldn't be looking for her there, Cambridge and Boston are two different cities... I guess maybe she did it on purpose, but, somehow I doubt it. Ugh. They're two different cities, with a freakin' river between them. *sigh*
    • 4/5
      Don't Turn Around by Michelle Gagnon is a novel about a conspiracy that gets people killed if that get too close. I would call this novel barely science fiction but definitely suspense. It is a planned trilogy.Noa's parents are dead, and she's been a ward of the state for years. She learned how to hack and can do just about anything on a computer. She wakes up in a room that seems to be a hospital room and has had surgery. She has no memory of needing surgery or being admitted. She has great instincts and knows that something is wrong, so she fights her way out and is on the run from these unknown people who want her back.Peter is the son of wealthy parents whose brother died from a disease that no one has been able to cure, as it kills young people. His father disdains Peter and feels like the better son died, so Peter does his own thing. He has a great car and plenty of money, so who needs parents? Peter established a group on the web that fights against abuses by getting even or making a statement via technology. One night Peter looks through his dad's computer and becomes curious at what he finds. Within an hour of researching his find, men break into the house and steak Peter's computer, telling him to tell his parents Mr. Mason was there. Peter's parents hastily return home but refuse to explain. Peter and Noa come together when Peter recruits her and others to find out who the company is and what is truly going on. Overall, you'll enjoy the novel. It is fast-paced and suspenseful.
    • 4/5
      I received this book from a Goodreads giveaway.

      Brief summary: Two hackers, one a boy who has lead a privileged life and the other a girl running from the foster care system, stumble upon a medical conspiracy and fight to protect themselves and expose the corrupt company involved.

      Thoughts: I enjoyed this book I thought it was well paced and interesting. It didn't feel dumbed down (which can happen when an author switches from adult books to YA) and the dialogue seemed realistic. I know very little about computers so I can not speak about the accuracy of the hacks but they seemed plausible and the explanations were short and kept my attention. The parts that were suppose to be sad didn't really make me feel for the characters- I think there was more action and suspense in this book then emotion. I did like the ending- I like that the book didn't just leave you in the middle of a sentence or action sequence although it did leave you in the middle of a mini-climax which is, I assume, meant to set up the next book.

      All in all I would recommend this book and I will probably pick up the next one.
    • 4/5
      Great book! A lot like Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Lots of suspense and action. The only thing I didn't like was there wasn't really an ending.
    • 4/5
      Originally posted on
    • 4/5
      Don't Turn Around was an exciting read! This is the story of Noa, a 16 year old who has run away from foster care. Noa is intelligent, tough and fiercely independent. The book begins with Noa waking in an abandoned warehouse on a hospital gurney with no idea how she got there. The action begins to escalate from there. What follows is a tightly woven tale of secrets and medical espionage. I would recommended this book to fans of I Am Number Four and Variant.
    • 4/5
      Noa Torson is a genius hacker and has figured out how to have a nice life. She spent years bouncing from foster home to foster home and forced to stay in a government halfway house in between. After setting up fake foster parents and fooling social services, nobody has bothered her and she is free to do as she pleases. Everything is going well until she wakes up on an operating table with no memory of how she got there. Noa escapes, but the organization who operated on her sends a constant stream of thugs to get her back. Peter Gregory is the opposite of Noa: rich, privileged, and enjoys a normal life. He is the founder and head of a hacker community called /ALLIANCE/. When digging into some mysterious files about Project Persephone he found in his father's computer, thugs dressed in black invade his house to rough him up, threaten him, and steal his computer. Shocked and dismayed, Peter reaches out to another hacker, who happens to be Noa, to find out more about Project Persephone. Are the two groups the same? What do they want? What is Project Persephone?Don't Turn Around is an exciting, fast paced conspiracy thriller. A lot of people have compared this book to Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because of the hacker elements and Noa's similarity to Lisbeth Salander. There are some similarities, but the two works are inherently different because of the age of the characters, the conspiracy aspect in the YA novel, and the overall tone of both books. Don't Turn Around stands on its own. I enjoyed most of the characters. Noa is my favorite character because of her single minded nature and intelligence. Even when she wakes up completely disoriented and scared, but manages to have the presence of mind and strength to evade and escape her captors. Her ability to put aside her emotions and think clearly to solve whatever problem faces her proves to be invaluable and comes from her background. Peter is much more normal and unused to such extreme situations. He comes from a much more comfortable home life, but the death of his brother basically tore apart his family. Creating /ALLIANCE/ allowed him to help people and punish those abusing power. Both characters strive for the same goal despite their differences and the slight romance between them did not overshadow the larger issues in the book. I had a couple problems with the book. The antagonists are very one dimensional, which makes the main characters seem awesome in comparison. I just felt they needed something extra to make them a little more human. Also, one of my favorite characters is killed and the event only merits a one line mention after the fact. I think it's completely ridiculous to make a great character that the audience would have an attachment to, only to off them in an anticlimactic way that robs any sort of catharsis or real effect. I enjoyed Don't Turn Around. It's kind of like the Love Actually of YA conspiracy thrillers. Each and every character is woven together quite intricately in unexpected ways. The surgeries, experiments, and black clad thugs are linked to Noa and Peter and basically everyone they know and extends even further than any of them expected. I hope Michelle Gagnon continues that theme into the next 2 installments in this series, which I will definitely read.
    • 5/5
      Like Stieg Larsson, Michelle Gagnon keeps the reader interested even with a lot of technical computer terminology. The characters, while young adults, are well drawn and ethical. Now wakes up to find herself on a cold steel table with an IV in her arm. She finds a way to escape from the warehouse complex where she had been held, but has no idea what happened to her. Meanwhile, Peter snoops through his father's desk and computer and begins searching for information about something weird he found on the computer. Soon after, the front door is broken down and thugs take his computer and warn him to stop doing what he is doing.Noa and Peter make contact through their mutual interest and abilities in computer hacking. They work together to find out what happened to Noa and how Peter's father is involved. The pace of the novel is perfect to keep the reader on the edge.
    • 4/5
      I won an ARC of Don't Turn Around by Michelle Gagnon in a giveaway for free from a blog participating in a Blog Tour- Don't Turn Around was a fantastic read with well rounded characters. I was expecting a little more out of this book, but not a let down at all. This makes for a superb set-up for book two in my opinion and hope to see some of the minor holes filled in. I will be continuing on with this series with high expectations. I can not pinpoint it but something seemed like it was missing.... You could not have asked for more as far as the characters go- 100 percent likable. There was light hints of romance (which was nice and not overdone) and lots of action. If this series heads in the right direction I think it will be a hit. The writing was well paced, smooth, and easy to follow. The book was detailed, but may be not enough in some areas. I like how the book grabs your attention from chapter one. I would recommend Don't Turn Around as a quick- exciting- mystery/thriller and I anticipate the arrival of book two. Don't turn around is a favorite for 2012 and I'm so glad to have won it- Great Addition to my Bookshelves :)
    • 4/5
      Loved this story because the main character is a kick-_ _ _ female hacker who is a tough and resilient survivor at the center of a mystery involving kidnapped teens. She's not in it alone however - Peter Gregory enlists her aid in checking out an organization, and they discover some interesting things. This is the first book in a trilogy, and I'll definitely be checking out the sequel.
    • 4/5
      Noa’s life consists of two things: computer-hacking and flying under the radar to avoid foster care. So when she wakes up on a table in an empty warehouse with a scar across her chest, she knows it can’t be good. In need of cash after her escape, she accepts a job from Peter, a fellow hacker whose house was raided after he hacked into a website. Determined to find answers, Noa and Peter discover that the same people are after them and stumble upon a secret that threatens both their lives.
    • 5/5
      Dang you, Michelle Gagnon!A year ago at a lit event, I had the opportunity to hear the author of Don’t Turn Around give her “elevator pitch” for this novel—a 30-second summary designed to hook a potential reader. Michelle Gagnon said, “A sixteen-year-old girl wakes, disoriented, in a hospital bed… in a warehouse. She’s in pain, she has a surgical incision on her chest, and she has no idea why.” That was more than enough to hook this reader. I clamored for the finished product for the next year, and grabbed a copy as soon as I was able.As it turns out, that pitch was just the tip of the iceberg! The teen at the center of this tale is Noa Torson, a young woman that’s become so independent after years in the foster care system that she took the matter of emancipation into her own capable hands. Noa’s been living a quiet life under the radar, making her way using her considerable computer skills to survive—until she’s snatched off the street and drawn into a conspiracy that grows so large that it can’t fit into a single novel! Along the way to uncovering what has happened to her and why, Noa unearths enemies and allies. I’m barely describing the plot because the twists, turns, and discoveries are too delicious to spoil. What I will say is that Ms. Gagnon has created an interesting and well-fleshed cast of characters with which to tell her tale. There is a male protagonist as well, Peter Gregory. This privileged young hacker comes from a different world than Noa, but they may have more in common than they realize. I found myself invested in them from the get go. Yes, Noa does share some characteristics with a well-known Swedish protagonist, but she is very much her own woman. She is also the latest in an encouraging collection of strong female protagonists driving stories that are so propulsive even young men will read them.For better or worse, what has become something of a YA trope, the teen love triangle, is in the process of developing here, but hasn’t reached full fruition quite yet. I don’t have an opinion on that plot element so far, but the mystery at the heart of this tale is an out and out winner. The pacing of this novel is relentless. I keep looking for a novel with Hunger Games-level excitement. This may be as close as I’ve come yet. It’s a full-on, pulse-pounding thriller that can be enjoyed by teens and adults alike. And while book one of this trilogy does have a complete arc, Ms. Gagnon is guilty of doing that horrible thing I freakin’ knew she was going to do—end her novel on a cliff-hanger! And here I am without so much as an elevator pitch to keep me going for the next year. Dang you, Michelle Gagnon!
    • 4/5
      What an intense ride!The minute I heard about this book I started panting for it. It sounded like a YA Girl With the Dragon Tattoo which I loved. The only thing I didn’t like (about GWTDT) was Larsson’s long, drawn out descriptions, but the stories were great.In Don’t Turn Around we meet Noa, a product of the system who has sworn off foster homes and learned to make it on her own thanks to her amazing hacking abilities. When Noa wakes up on a table with a scar on her chest and an IV in her arm, she has no idea how she got there or why. Since Noa isn’t the type to sit around and just go with it, she kicks ass and escapes, hell-bent on finding out what happened to her. Her research connects her with a fellow hacker named Peter who has troubles of his own. They soon learn that their problems are connected, and that the people after them will do anything to stop them from finding out their secret.I totally loved this book. While there was a lot about Noa that reminded me of Lisbeth Salander, she was still very much her own person. I loved her strength and determination and seeing her vulnerabilities. All of the characters are very well-developed. The plot never disappoints and Ms. Gagnon has expertly balanced the intense action with just the right amount of “down time” to give the reader a chance to catch their breath. I warn you, if you pick up this book, make sure you’ve allowed yourself plenty of time because once you start you can’t stop.Filled with memorable characters, a fast-moving plot and plenty of thrills, Don’t Turn Around is a perfect thriller that is not to be missed. This is definitely one of my favorites of 2012.