Don't Turn Around

A Novel

By: Jessica Barry

Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman

Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

The riveting follow-up to Jessica Barry’s debut Freefall - a controversial, of-the-moment thriller about two women fighting for their right to live.

Three hundred twenty-two miles of road. Six hours. Two strangers. One killer. Too many secrets.

Midnight. Cait Monaghan and Rebecca McRae are on a desolate road that slices through the New Mexican desert. They've never met before tonight. Both have secrets to protect. Both of their lives are in danger.

When a truck pulls up fast behind them, they assume it's punk teenagers or run-of-the-mill road rage, but it soon becomes clear that whoever is driving the truck is hunting them for sport - and they are out to draw blood.

As the miles unspool and the dangers mount, the pasts they've worked so hard to keep buried have come back to haunt them. Someone wants one of them dead. But which one? And given the lives the two women have been leading, that someone could be almost anyone.

If Cait and Rebecca are going to survive, they'll have to learn to trust one another - and themselves. But trust is a costly business, and they’ve both paid the price before....

©2020 Jessica Barry (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

Not nearly as good as Freefall

Compared to Freefall, which I foolishly thought this was a sequel to, I would give it 2 stars. The story isn't nearly as good, but still enjoyable to listen to. I found the narrator annoying and almost returned the book, but got used to it.

couldnt finish

There were so many things these two did that were just not what a reasonable person would do...I had to give it up. Don't understand all the good reviews.

Good book

This keeps you on your toes all the way good message about how corrupted our politics has become but all in all a great read

Exciting good book up until...

The religious nonsense started driving the narrative. I generally just let it go when religion is brought up in books but this whole “ miracle” crap on and on in this book made me a little sick.
It should definitely be in the Cristian Fiction.
Oh and it’s not OK to choke a woman unless she’s into rough sex but we get to suffer through the victim blaming herself along with the entire internet for telling her story. Really? Death threats for telling what happened to you? If I con send to sex with a man who suddenly mid act started cutting off my air I would be showing the cops my bruises. Last I checked choking is assault and “ rough sex” requires consent. I don’t care what adults get up to if BOTH are into it . Otherwise, that’s a crime. Even if she did “ go with him and flirt with him” Thanks author you almost had a great book. I enjoyed the action until the next paragraph was rife with “miracle “
talk about a fetal condition that has no cure or treatment. There was a small nod to the pro-life protestor zealots who attack women and verbally assault the workers and sometimes physically too. But mostly I felt the strong pro-life , anti-me too movement vibe.

Story that keeps you on the edge of your seat!

If you like real suspense, with some contemporary gender politics this is for you! Excellent read!

a good thriller mixed in with a contemporary story

Don't Turn Around by Jessica Barry is about two women driving 322 miles (from Texas to New Mexico) through the middle of the night. The purpose of the trip this stealth trip by two women who are strangers to one another is slow to be revealed, but it is obvious that one of them is desperate to get away from her home. Unfortunately they quickly find themselves in danger, alone and without cell service.

This one packs a punch. Not only do we have a suspenseful page-turner, with loads of twists and a speedy pace, but it is also a story that makes you think. I think this turn toward political could be seen as a bad choice by some readers, but I loved it. After finishing it I found myself thinking about how this roadtrip started and how important it is to assist women in similar positions.

very engaging book. good twist towards the end

really good story line. the audiobook version was marred by the narrator who had an annoying habit of dropping her voice an octave at the end of every sentence. it was very distracting.

abortion and #metoo proselytizing

in what was supposedly a thriller what we get is preaching on how most all men are jerks .

So..... Every man is evil and/or a pervert??

The story was all over the place and seemed only to prove that all men are bad and all women are victims. not saying it didn't happen, but this was ridiculous. pointless parts of in the book only to illustrate that point and not move the story forward.

Don't Waste Your Time or Money

There is a problem with Audible's rating system: It does not provide the option to give a book zero stars.

This is not great literature. It is not good literature. In my opinion, it really isn't literature at all. We have over 450 Audible titles in our library and this is easily THE WORST book I have listened to.

To add insult to injury, Sarah Zimmerman is one of the worst readers I have listened to, hyper-pronouncing ad nauseam, pausing and pausing and pausing in her reading. Several times I though my battery had died because she paused in an unusual place for an unusually long time.

The plot is incredibly convoluted, unnecessarily complex. The characters are not developed as people; they are simply prototypes written in the broadest terms. There's no way to identify with anyone in this book.

Jessica Barry does not consider the way normal people would react to stress. Do you know anyone who could kill a person, leave his body in the desert and not think twice about it? No remorse? No regret? No second thoughts?

The author does not have good grammar. She needs to read a primer on the use of me, myself, and I.

The author does not know that lizards are cold blooded, and therefore can't "scamper" through the desert in the dark when it is cold outside. If she doesn't have this basic knowledge, at least she should hire an editor who does. Or leave lizards out of the story altogether.

This book was basically a mishmash of poorly conceived ideas and I am very sorry I devoted 8 hours and 56 minutes of my life listening to it. Shame on me.