Don't Look Back (Jennifer L. Armentrout)

Samantha is a stranger in her own life. Until the night she disappeared with her best friend, Cassie, everyone said Sam had it all-popularity, wealth, and a dream boyfriend. Sam has resurfaced, but she has no recollection of who she was or what happened to her that night. As she tries to piece together her life from before, she realizes it's one she no longer wants any part of. The old Sam took "mean girl" to a whole new level, and it's clear she and Cassie were more like best enemies. Sam is pretty sure that losing her memories is like winning the lottery. She's getting a second chance at being a better daughter, sister, and friend, and she's falling hard for Carson Ortiz, a boy who has always looked out for her-even if the old Sam treated him like trash. But Cassie is still missing, and the facts about what happened to her that night isn't just buried deep inside of Sam's memory-someone else knows, someone who wants to make sure Sam stays quiet. All Sam wants is the truth, and if she can unlock her clouded memories of that fateful night, she can finally move on. But what if not remembering is the only thing keeping Sam alive?

I was so excited about this book, I really was but it disappointed me. And it wasn't the plot (the main non-romantic plot was kick ass). Instead it was the bland characters and the writing that bored me and had me skimming this novel. Oh, god, not to mention the dialogue.

When Sam was like, "I'm so going to kill her," I was like,

Except for names, appearances and connections to other characters, there were no defining characteristics for any of the characters. What did Sam love to do other then shopping? What did she want to go to Yale to study? Did she have any new interests as New-Sam? What did Carson want to go to Penn State and study?Sam was the typical Mean Girl who used to rule her school There's nothing unique about her. She has a copy-cat near lookalike best friend, Cassie and a boyfriend that everyone covets. Of course Cassie and the boyfriend (Del) messed around behind Sam's back before she lost her memory. And Del is the typical good looking, rich, top athlete (in this case baseball) at her school. And a loser. Who the fuck sends pictures of their girlfriend going down on them around school-while she is your girlfriend? Are you trying not to ever get it again? And who the fuck takes him back?

Anyway, now that Sam is New Sam, she doesn't want to be like that anymore. She wants the friend she gave up (her brother's girlfriend Julie) back in exchange for Veronica, Candy but not Lauren (the nice one of her Mean Girls group). So she does this by getting pissed off at the Mean Girls for calling people fat and stopped dressing like a model. Not to mention she decides she wants Carson, who is the son of Sam's groundskeeper.

The plot though-the main plot was sooo interesting. I didn't give a crap about Carson and Sam's feelings for each other. That was obvious from Day One when she saw him and was so head-over-heels for him and thought he was her boyfriend. There was nothing unique about Carson except he's Mexican and good looking but that's it. Anyway, I started wondering if Don't Look Back was going to follow in the footsteps of Choker making the protagonist crazy and everything in her head. However, while she was a little crazy (understandable seeing the circumstances that caused the trauma in the first place) she didn't kill Cassie.

I had guessed from the times Sam had said that she and Cassie looked alike that they were going to somehow be related. Sam's parents aren't in love. The old money mom is embarrassed of her relationship with the scholarship Yale student she married. However, she doesn't want to divorce him because she doesn't want to be talked about. Anyway, Sam's dad had an one-night-stand with Cassie's mom at some point and she agreed to leave town with their daughter. That child would've fucked up his marriage especially seeing the pre-nup that is in place so he refused to acknowledge her. Later, Cassie and her mom come to town and somehow Cassie has found her birth certificate with her real dad's name on it (talk about amateurs). And goes all Wicked Witch of the West for the next couple of years.

               

The night in question, Cassie (for some random reason on this night) decides to set Sam up to hear the truth. She and Sam's dad meet up at the lake and fight as she begs him to be in her life. (Sad). But then she decides to blackmail him and he (accidently?) pushes her off the cliff where she dies. He doesn't know that Sam is there until she comes shooting out of the trees and slips and falls too. Her fucked up dad thinks they're both dead and leaves them there WITHOUT A CELL PHONE! Because he didn't want to lose the rich lifestyle he'd become accustomed too.

However, the trauma was great to Sam. She saw her best friend/secret sister get killed by her father and then nearly died afterwards. She hallucinated Cassie's killer in the back of her car which caused her to have a car accident. And all the notes she was getting, she was actually writing to herself.

I should've been able to figure out from the notes. Actually, no I shouldn't. I don't know why Sam was writing these notes to herself when they weren't helpful at all. They were vague (and stupid) enough to keep up the suspicion that it was someone else writing the notes to her.

#1) Don't look back. You won't like what you'll find.
#2) There was blood on the rocks. Her blood. Your blood.
#3) You know why she was at the lake.
#4) You know who killed Cassie.
#5) Don't let him know you remember anything.

Towards the ending, it seems like the author started rushing herself. The final memory of That Night which is broken up in two different chapters, is recounted to us as a story through Sam instead of a flashback like all the others we had seen. I really would've loved to hear the dialogue between Cassie and Sam's dad and to feel exactly what Sam was feeling. Not to mention what happened when she fell and hurt herself too. And why the heck did the dad take her phone? What made Cassie randomly decide to confront the dad that night out of all times.

Anyway, if you can get past the horrible dialogue (most high schoolers say ass not "butt"), the cardboard characters and the lack of interesting romance, I would recommend this book.

For the plot.

Strictly for the plot.