The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Genre: mystery, paranormal

Series and Book #: Mara Dyer Trilogy #1
Pages: 452
Summary:

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.

 

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The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer had a great storyline, interesting twists, and enough horror and intrigue to keep me either wanting to put the book down and close my eyes or read until dawn. It was much darker than I thought it would be. Michelle Hodkin kept it creepy and mysterious. Mara's revolting ability to kill people with just a thought was subtle enough that until she states it in the novel, I wasn't entirely sure Mara was the cause of the deaths. With the addition of Noah's powers, the man with the watch, and Jude suddenly appearing, Hodkin kept the surprises flowing and the oddities reappearing.

I didn't like Mara as a character. She was full of self-pity. Everyone wanted to help her and Noah was convinced he could, but she didn't listen. She kept her feelings to herself. At the end, she didn't try to stop herself. Even though Noah said she could, she didn't listen, and she willingly accepted that she could kill people and she was going to use that ability. It disgusted me. I wish she would have tried to fight it somehow. Not just give up.

Overall, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer was great. Mara's hallucinations were very detailed and descriptive. What was going on in her head was terrifying. Hodkin didn't hesitate to keep it dark. The mystery surrounding the asylum collapse was intriguing, especially when Jude appeared in Mara's life more often. Mara's amnesia wasn't as prominent as I thought it would be. I wish the sudden flashes of memory would have been touched upon better.

The Cover: Lovely. It's definitely one of those covers that made me think, "This book is going to be interesting."