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Summary
Summary
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.
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-Teen runaway Noa has managed to make a tolerable life for herself. She has an apartment, a job as a freelance computer security specialist (she's a hacker), and a fake foster family to make it all legal. Most importantly, she is off the grid and all but invisible-until she wakes up on an operating table with no memory of the past three weeks, a strange scar, and a ton of questions. She needs help and she needs answers, but first she needs to escape. Peter, a privileged suburban kid who leads a computer hacktivist group called /ALLIANCE/, has stumbled onto a terrible secret that may involve his whole family. Suddenly the two of them are on the run, chased by a powerful company willing to do anything to catch them and keep their secrets. Don't Turn Around is a tight, well-written thriller from a best-selling adult writer. The story opens quickly but then takes a while to gain momentum. However, by the time Noa and Peter get together, the action and the developments come fast and furious all the way to the end. The teens come across as authentic young adults and deftly walk the fine line between teenage hard-headedness and being appropriately sympathetic. There is a certain amount of computer jargon but it never slows the action, and everything is reasonably explained. The ending is left open for a possible sequel, which will surely excite anyone who reads this first installment.-Erik Knapp, Davis Library, Plano, TX (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Teenage hackers Noa and Peter band together for vengeance and discover an inconceivable conspiracy. Sixteen-year-old computer whiz Noa Torson has escaped the Child Protective Services system by creating a fake foster family that includes a reclusive, freelance IT-guy of a father who draws a tidy salary working "from home"; she thinks she's safe. When she wakes up in a hospitallike operating theater with no memory of how she got there, she doesn't take the doctors' lame explanation that she was in a car accident and uses her smarts to escape. Meanwhile, Boston child-of-privilege Peter pokes around his father's files and is interrupted by armed thugs who break down the door and storm off with his computer (leaving a warning for his parents). Peter enlists his hacktivist group /ALLIANCE/ (of which Noa is a member) to, first, research the subject of those files and then to attack his attackers via the Net. The attack only serves to dig the teens in deeper when they uncover a frightening conspiracy of human experimentation and corporate malfeasance that could mean a quick death for them both. Adult author Gagnon's YA debut is a pulse-pounding scary-great read. The strong characters and dystopian day-after-tomorrow setting will have teens begging for more. The slightly open end leaving the possibility (but not necessity) of a sequel will rankle some; others will just breathlessly smile. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for preteens and teens, a surefire hit. (Thriller. 12-16)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
