Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by: Michelle Hodkin

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by: Michelle Hodkin
Publication Date: September 27, 2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Page Count: 452
Series: #1 in Mara Dyer
Buy the Book: Amazon

 Summary from Goodreads:

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.

My Review:

 Before reading this, I had heard all of the blogger and reader hype that said it was revolutionary and just flat out amazing. When I first read the summary, I didn't think much of it and thought it sounded like an overused plot theme. I was very wrong. Mara Dyer blew me away! It's almost strange how much I love this book. I found that it embodies the very best I've ever seen in YA literature. It's possible that I would recommend this to a complete stranger.

 It starts out in a kind of creepy way and hints a little bit of what happens later. Mara lost her friends when a building crashed and her family decides to move away. She thinks that maybe a new place will clear up all the blurriness of the night of her friends deaths. Little does she know, its only the beginning.

 Naturally, with a new place comes a new school. And with a new school comes new people. Enter Noah. Rumors about him fluttered around and made him out to be a total jerk. This is Mara's first impression as well but then she gets to see a side of him that nobody else really does. Noah, for sure, goes on my list of best male protagonists ever. He is arrogant and utterly sarcastic sometimes and then he's sweet. The relationship between Mara and Noah inspires me still in my own writing.


Death seems to be following Mara everywhere she goes. Is she going crazy? The more she discovers about herself and what she's capable of, the more crazy and terrified of herself she feels. All of the mystery had a sort of whimsical quality to it. Mara has dreams that slowly piece together what happened the night of the accident, which is kind of the linchpin of the whole story.

 Mysterious things kept happening around every corner and there wasn't a moment when I wasn't completely entranced. One thing that stood out in this book was that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't predict a thing. I really value when an author has the ability to make a book unpredictable.

 One thing I didn't like too much was the vagueness. It was clear that something was special about Mara but I got confused in certain parts. Overall, this book is one of my all time favorites. I cannot wait for the Evolution of Mara Dyer, coming to bookstores on October 23, 2012!

 

 Official Rating:



Five Un-Birthday Cakes!