DON’T LOOK BACK by Jennifer L. Armentrout

by TPS reader kaminskim19

Samantha had everything any teenager would want; popularity, wealth, and an oh-so-perfect relationship with her drop dead gorgeous, baseball star boyfriend. The first line of the book shows Sam waking up from a nightmare, which turns out to be her reality. She’s walking through a forest, barefoot with blood and mud stains covering her clothes. She has been missing and remembers nothing.  People around her begin to fill her in on what type of person she was before she disappeared with her best “friend” Cassie. After being told, she decides she doesn’t want to be the terrible person she was. Losing your memory is absolutely terrible, but for her, it’s almost a second chance. A second chance to rebuild relationships with the people she dropped out of her life. A second chance to actually be a good family member. A second chance to make things right with Carson Ortiz, the boy who has been there for her for so long, yet she had never paid attention to him nor treated him with the respect he earned. But Cassie, the one she had disappeared with, could not be found. Everything that happened to Sam and Cassie is still buried deep in Sam’s mind, and it isn’t easy to unlock. On top of that, someone is trying to make sure that nothing that happened that night gets revealed. In order to move on from everything that happened, Sam desperately tries to get her memories back and discover the truth. This book is filled with twists, heart-stopping relationships, and is just an absolutely amazing book that you should definitely read if you love mystery and romance books.

AFTERWORLDS by Scott Westerfield

by TPS reader shahj18

Afterworlds is a very unique book.  Having a shift of viewpoint throughout a book isn’t unheard of, but switching between an author and the story she’s written is definitely unique.  Despite my initial troubles with the drastic viewpoint shift every chapter, I really loved Afterworlds.  Both Darcy, the aforementioned author, and Lizzie, the protagonist of Darcy’s story, are wonderful characters who feel very real, despite the fact that Lizzie is literally a character being written by another character.  The story, however, does make me question Scott Westerfield, the actual author.  Was Lizzie’s story simply made as a background to Darcy’s and to give the book an interesting twist?  Or were both stories written as true stories that were intertwined, and if so how could he simply end Lizzie’s where he did?  There’s also the possibility that the whole thing was Westerfield showing off the fact that he can write two stories at the same time.  Regardless of the intentions of the author, Afterworlds is a fantastic story.