Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Book: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Pages: 452

Genre: Young Adult, paranormal

Source: library

Short Synopsis: Mara wakes up from the hospital one day with no memory of what happened the previous days. She has no idea why her friends are dead and she's the only survivor. After the accident, Mara and her family decide to move to a whole new place, and Mara never dreamed that she'd be able to fall in love.

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this novel, until it took a turn to the dark side, which became a bit confusing, and left some unexplained occurrences.

Mara and her friends decide on a dare one day to head to the local asylum for the night. After a horrible accident turned bad, Mara ends up being in the hospital, and the rest of her friends are found dead, crushed by the building.

Mara has no recollection of what really went down that awful night, and doesn't seem to be able to handle the situation well. After attending the funerals of her friends, Mara and her family decide to move and make a fresh start. But as Mara starts school, she starts to have hallucinations of her dead friends, even though she knows they no longer exist.

As if things couldn't be worse for Mara, a prestigious students starts to take notice of Mara and through better judgement, Mara starts falling for this particular boy. But as Mara starts to have a life once again, the haunting of her friends become worse, and Mara also discovers that she has a special power. If pushed enough, Mara can will the death of anyone and anything. Can Mara continue on knowing the horrible power she wields?

A really great read, with awesome characters, but a little questionable in some areas. When I first got this book, I was super excited, because there had been so much buzz going on about it, I wanted to know what the fuss was all about. I loved the paranormal aspect of it when it kind of seemed like she was seeing the ghosts of her friends, but wasn't really thrilled with the part where Mara had the power to give death. I absolutely LOVED the chemistry between Mara and Noah, and had me smiling a lot when the two of them were involved. I must admit that my favorite scene in the novel was when Noah took over Mara's art class, and became a model for the class to torture Mara. Noah is one of my favorite characters and adored the romance between the two. But there were a couple things that didn't really sit right with me. It wasn't really explained why and how Noah and Mara had these special powers. It was also a bit confusing why Mara when to go see a hypnotist and why that when they came back to the same building that it suddenly disappeared. I was also confused as to why Mara could see all her dead friends but Jude seemed to be real in the end. Needless to say, I will definitely be reading the sequel to find out more.

Would I recommend this book: Yes

Rating: I give this book a 4/5.