Book Review: Don't Look Back by Jennifer L. Armentrout

You know, I feel like I haven’t read an amazing book in a very long time. Sure, Under The Never Sky was decent, but while it was good, it wasn’t spectacular beyond belief. It’s hard to find a truly good book in the fantasy and science fiction genres nowadays, because all of the really good ideas have probably already been used elsewhere (see my Defectorsreview). But then, a few months back, after searching on Amazon I noticed that one of my favorite paranormal romance novelists, Jennifer L. Armentrout, was writing a mystery novel. Naturally, I pre-ordered it and waited until April for the book to be downloaded onto my kindle. Once it was, I began to read it. The result: it’s the best book that I’ve read all year. Sit back, relax, and read on as I review my favorite book of 2014 so far, Don’t Look Back by Jennifer L. Armentrout.

The Setup:

A teenaged girl wakes up barefooted, bloody, and dirty on the outskirts of a small town. She heads to town with no memory of her previous life, including her name, age, family, and friends.  She is picked up by some police officers and is brought to the hospital. There, two people who claim to be her parents show up, telling her that her name is Samantha (Before I Fall, anyone?). As it turns out, she used to be one of those popular girls that everyone acts like they love but secretly hated, and that she and her best friend Cassie went to a cliff to talk about something and never returned. With the only evidence of the event being locked inside Samantha’s memories, she continues to investigate the case, learning more clues along the way, along with falling in love with a boy named Carson. Maybe it’s just the fact that I’ve barely read any mystery novels, but I found this setup to be really unique. It presents the mystery nicely, it introduces us to the characters, and sets everything on a trail that’s relatively easy to follow, which is what a setup should do.

The Characters:

This is without a doubt the best part of Don’t Look Back, which is fantastic considering how (at least in my book) it is the characters that normally get you invested into a story. Samantha is wonderful. I loved how we got to see the world through her perspective, which, at first, is unbiased and innocent, and the only thing that she really acts on is her instincts due to not having any memories. She only did what she thought was right, which helped her in some cases and then ruined her in others. I also really liked her personality, and her developing character. Once she learns about her shallow and detestable former self, she tries to apologize to people that her former friends had hurt, and remodel her image as a respectable human being. Her amnesia is also very believable, which is a major plus. I also liked how she was very different from Jennifer L. Armentrout’s other protagonists. As much as I love characters like Katy and Alex, they were similar in a lot of ways; granted, they are seperate characters with distinct personalities, but a lot of their traits and attitudes are the same, being outgoing, snarky, and relatable protagonists. Samantha is more quiet, reserved, and modest (not including the “old” Samantha), but still sticks up for what she believes in and isn’t afraid to talk back to people if she thinks their actions are unjustified or mean-spirited. She may actually be my favorite Jennifer L. Armentrout protagonist, and considering her lineup of fantastic female protagonists, that’s saying a heck of a lot. The other most important character is Carson, the love interest. Again, this guy is so much different from your average Jennifer L. Armentrout love interest. They’re normally cold and distant jerks that have a softer side once you get to know them. Actually, she’s the only author (with the exception of Cassandra Clare) who can create a character within that archetype that I don’t want to throw out a window (see Daemon from the Lux series and Aidan from Half-Blood). Carson is not like that at all. He’s distant at first, but only because the old Samantha had an awful attitude towards him, degrading him every chance she got. But, once Samantha proves that she’s not like her old self, they gradually regain their former friendship and then fall in love. While I don’t think that the relationship is as strong as, say, the Lux series’ was, I still give it a pass because a) Don’t Look Back is a singular novel and not a series; and b) It’s much better than the majority of the romances that I read about. The side characters are also good and pretty memorable, but not nearly as much as the two mains.

The Story:

The aspects about this story that I absolutely adore are its pacing and character development. The pacing is perfect, and I never got bored once while reading it. In fact, I finished this book in two days. I don’t remember the last time I finished a book in two days, but I can assure you that it was a rather long time ago. Every chapter left me on the edge of my seat, wanting more, and I barely noticed the lengthy amounts of time that were flying by as I read it. Next, its usage of character emotions and the psychological aspects in this story are apparent, but aren’t shoved in your face. It brings up the theme of how social hierarchies affect people mentally, and how far they will go in order to maintain their power, along with jealousy, trust, and loyalty. With the exception of school books, I haven’t read a book laced with so many subtle themes since Looking For Alaska (well, anything written by John Green), and it’s something that I absolutely love. The ending is also fantastic, being satisfying and conclusive.

The Writing Style/Grammatical Errors:

As for all of Jennifer L. Armentrout’s books, the writing style is smooth, straight to the point, descriptive (but not to the point of being excessive), and has an attitude in it that is rarely found in books that I read. I have close to no problems with it, except for the fact that there were some phrases that conflicted with the tone a little bit. This is a serious novel, and I don’t think that using words like “awesomesauce” helps set that tone. It was fine in her other novels, but in this one those words stuck out like a sore thumb. There were no major grammatical errors that I could find, so no complaints here.

Final Judgment:

Overall, I think that Don’t Look Back is excellent, maybe even one of my new favorite books. It has great characters, a well-paced and exciting story, a perfect writing style, and I have pretty much no objective or opinionated complaints about it. I give Don’t Look Back a 4.75 out of 5, and a recommendation to READ IT NOW! But, like always, it is up to you to decide your own opinions.
ScoreCard:

Buy Don’t Look Back: http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Look-Back-Jennifer-Armentrout-ebook/dp/B00GSZHYK0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398717476&sr=8-1&keywords=don%27t+look+back

Further Recommendations:

The Lux Series by Jennifer L. Armentrout

This is a good recommendation if you’re looking for something within the same style as Don’t Look Back, as Jennifer L. Armentrout has one distinct style that carries through to all of her books. The plot and characters may be different, but it’s still Jennifer L. Armentrout, and that’s almost a guaranteed seller.

Pretty Little Liars Series by Sara Shepherd

I haven’t actually read these books due to its daunting length, but from what I’ve heard it’s a really good mystery series that has a lot of the same elements as Don’t Look Back. Check it out.

The next review will be on a science-fiction anime. Here’s the hint: My head is full of things that I could never tell anyone about.

See you then!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Update 4-23-14: Change in Review

Hello to all my followers!

So, in my latest review I stated that I would review Into The Still Blue, the final book in the Under The Never Sky series. Well, I'd like to change that. I won't be reviewing Into The Still Blue, but I will tell you what I thought of it here: 

It was better than the first book, and was a satisfying conclusion to an overall great trilogy. 4 out of 5. 

Now, the new review will be on a different book. Here's the hint: Don't look back. You won't like what you find.

The review may not come out for a while; got a lot of finals coming up. But, I'll see you then!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Anime Review: Kill la Kill

Sometimes there are anime out there that are just meant to entertain; nothing more, nothing less. Kill la Kill, on the other hand, is a completely different beast. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen something as insanely over-the-top or as stupid as this anime before, but it’s extremely entertaining. It does make me wonder what the heck the people at Studio Trigger had to do in order to come up with this idea, because…well, let’s just say that even the most creative minds wouldn’t be able to come up with something like this anime unless they were extremely high on LSD. Then again, this is a studio that originated from Studio Gainax, who have proudly brought the anime community FLCL (WHAT THE HECK DID I JUST WATCH), Neon Genesis Evangelion (I think the anime world would like an actual explanation as to what The End of Evangelion meant), Gurren Lagann (Logic Does Not Exist), and finally Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt (Power Puff Girls Gone Wild). I don’t think anyone was surprised that Kill la Kill turned out the way that it did, considering the team behind it. Sit back, relax, and read on as I attempt to tackle the insanity that is Kill la Kill. 

The Setup:

So, Kill la Kill takes place in, where else, high school; to be more specific, Honnouji Academy. The school is practically dominated by the student council president Satsuki Kiryuin, who distributes out articles of clothing called Goku (DBZ reference is blatant) Uniforms out to her students. These Goku Uniforms are made to give the students powers that they would not normally be able to obtain on their own, and the higher the star is on your uniform, the more powerful you are. Of course, this makes the school pretty much a fascist society, with Satsuki’s most loyal subjects getting the most powerful uniforms (namely The Elite Four) and those on the bottom get pretty much nothing. All of that is changed however when our main protagonist Ryuko Matoi makes her first appearance, searching for the person who killed her father out of vengeance. After Satsuki basically makes Ryuko suspicious of her, the two fight and Ryuko is defeated. She then goes back to her house and, well, “finds” a sailor uniform that gives her power beyond belief…but also isn’t the smartest thing to wear on a cold day. She names the uniform Senketsu and vows to fight until she can figure out who killed her father. Yes, you just read that, and yes, if you take this anime seriously you will not enjoy yourself at all. However, the anime does do a fair job at turning your brain off for you by getting you invested into the story through pretty good characters.

The story begins with Ryuko Matoi transferring to Honnoji Academy to search for her father's murderer

The Characters:

Anime like this need to get the audience invested into some aspect of it so that the audience won’t care about the amount of stupidity being shown on screen. Normally, for me, the characters are what gets me invested into any kind of story whether it be stupid or serious, and Kill la Kill did manage to get me invested into the character’s conflicts. Sure, the characters really weren’t all that complex and were rather straightforward, but if you tried to make the characters complex in this case, then it would ruin the fun. Ryuko is kind of like the female version of Eren Jaeger from Attack On Titan, being overly emotional and filled with rage, but to be fair she’s a lot more interesting a character. She messes up and sometimes she takes her anger too far, and most of all, she’s a girl. I normally don’t care about the protagonist’s gender, but it does annoy me that the majority of female protagonists are stupid, boring, or both. It was so refreshing to see a female protagonist that’s neither of the above, which you would think would make her my favorite female protagonist. Sadly, that is not the case. Even though her personality is refreshing, Ryuko doesn't really learn from her mistakes and keeps on repeating the same mistake over and over and over again, and didn't really develop as a character. So, while I did like her character, a personality can only take her so far, and henceforth she isn't my favorite female protagonist. As for Satsuki, she’s just one of my favorite anime characters period, basically for the same reasons as Ryuko (personality-wise), but also because Satsuki seems a lot more sophisticated and mature. She's like a female version of Lelouch vi Britannia, because she’s quiet, manipulative, and you never know what her real intentions are. This makes her a very mysterious character, and by far the most interesting one. I also really like the direction that the creators decided to take her character, and it's something that I'm not going to spoil; just watch it for yourselves if you choose to. As for the other side characters, there are way too many to talk about in one review, so I’ll just go over the most important side characters: Senketsu and Mako. Senkentsu is a sailor uniform that can talk, and while this sounds incredibly stupid, he’s actually a well-developed character that acts as a voice of reason to Ryuko. He was also someone that I gradually came to care for, after getting over the fact that he’s a…sailor uniform. Finally, there’s Mako. People seem to either love this character or hate her, calling her either the queen of comedy or the anime version of Jar Jar Binks. I’m personally indifferent towards her. Yeah, she can be funny at times, but until her character development in episode 7 I thought she was ungodly annoying. And, I’m not going to lie, even afterwards I thought she was kind of irritating. Still, though, when she wasn’t trying to be comedic during a dramatic scene she was pretty hilarious. Finally, the villains. Oh my god, the villains in Kill la Kill are perfect. Ragyo is a character that makes even the silliest of outfits look intimidating, and is one of the best villain characters that I’ve seen in a verylong time. In fact, place her in the number 2 spot in my Top Ten Favorite Anime Villains, right behind Kirei. Then there’s Nui Harime. I freaking hate this character! She’s annoying, psychotic, overly innocent, has committed crimes that will make you hate her…my god, she’s just despicable! Granted, it’s for all the right reasons, so I guess I shouldn’t really be complaining all that much.

The Main Characters

Ragyo

The Story:
I actually made a parody video concerning the plot of Kill la Kill, so if you guys want to check it out to learn the entire plot of this anime, go ahead. Beware of spoilers: