Book Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

9/02/2012 authors , book review , help 0 Comments

I've decided to do some book reviews from time to time and maybe some author interviews as well. So if you're an author reading this blog and would like for me to interview you to help promote your book, let me know. I'd be also willing to review your book as well; however, I don't own a Kindle so it would have to be a paperback book sent to me.

As you know, I'm an author myself, and I know how hard it is to market and spread the word around about your book. I strongly believe in paying it forward and as time in my busy life allows it, I want to help other authors out as much as I can.

Why?

Because we're in this together.

We understand each other.

We know what it's like when a character talks to you or when one just happens to show up out of nowhere.

We know the whole process of what it takes to create a story.

That's why.

So I'm starting now with my review on The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin.

I'm giving it a 4 star rating.



Goodreads says: "Mara Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. It can. She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed. There is. She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love. She's wrong."
　
　
I bought this book on a whim because it sounded interesting and it was. I have to admit though, it left me a bit confused and a little disappointed. For example, at the beginning of the book is a handwritten letter that says, "My name is not Mara Dyer, but my lawyer told me I had to choose something."

So what’s her real name, or am I missing something here?

There were questions I had that weren’t answered in this book. Hopefully, the next book The Evolution of Mara Dyer, will answer those questions.

By the way, I won an ARC of The Evolution of Mara Dyer, and I’ll do a book review on it once I finish reading it.

Anyway, despite my confusion and disappointment, this was a good read, and I loved how the story began–with seventeen-year-old Mara, her best friend Rachel and a not-so-good friend Claire, playing with a Ouija board. Rachel asks the board how she’s going to die. The planchette sails across the board. Slowly it spells M.A.R.A.

Six months later, Mara’s friends are dead. After days of being in a coma, Mara wakes up in a hospital, connected to a bunch of tubes with no recollection of what happened. Her mother finally tells her she was in an accident.

Mara, her boyfriend Jude, Rachel and Claire had decided one night to sneak into an old abandoned building that used to be the Tamerlane State Lunatic Asylum in Rhode Island. The building ended up collapsing, killing her friends but not Mara.

After Mara is released from the hospital, eight weeks later her family moves to Miami, Florida, hoping a new change in scenery would help Mara’s Post-traumatic stress disorder and nightmares.

It doesn’t.

Mara begins having hallucinations. She sees Claire in the mirror and then Jude wandering in a crowd. When she starts her new school–a private school called Croyden Academy–and enters her class, she sees cracks appearing in the classroom walls. The ceiling begins to crumble and dust fills the room.

It’s not real.

Mara’s face collides with the floor, giving her a bloody nose. Not a good way to start a new school. When Mara dashes to the bathroom, she sees Claire in the mirror and then Jude outside, freaking her out.

And then there’s Noah Shaw.

Aaaah. Noah.

I know there are people who don’t like or get Noah’s character, but I totally do. He’s tall, cute, and British. The only qualm I have about his character is Michelle Hodkin made him sound more American than British. I wish she had added some British slang and humor to his character. But other than that, my teenage self fell in love with him. Maybe because my husband is British, although he purposely lost his accent when he moved to America, which is so wrong. That accent is hot in my opinion. But Noah’s bad-boy character, his personality, and how he carries himself, was well done. I also like Mara’s character. She finds out Noah is a player so when he shows interest in her, she doesn’t give him the time of day. She makes him work for it. Of course the other girls at Croyden are jealous that Noah wants nothing more than to be with Mara.

But then things start getting weirder in Mara’s world. People that she wishes to die, dies. She doesn’t understand what’s happening and at first chalks it up to coincidence. Then it happens again, and she starts having dreams about that night when she and her friends had gone to the asylum. Stray memories crop up in her mind, and she comes to the conclusion that she killed her friends.

But did she?

What’s really going on with her?

Why all of a sudden it appears like she has some paranormal ability?

Why now?

This book left me with so many unanswered questions and like I said, I’m hoping this next book will fill in the blanks.

If you like suspense and want to read something different in the YA genre that will twist your mind a bit, I recommend this book. Yeah, it leaves you hanging, but it’s compelling enough to want to read the next book.