The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
by Michelle Hodkin (Goodreads Author)
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.
Hardcover,
452 pages
Published September 27th 2011
ISBN:
1442421762 (ISBN13: 9781442421769)
And so it goes. Girl gets in accident, All her friends are dead. She has no memory of anything that occurred. All she knows is her friends are gone. Rachel, Clare, and Alex are still all gone. Next thing she knows, her psychologist Mom is more on her case than ever, and her whole family (her, her two brothers, and parents) are being moved to Miami, Florida.
The way that Michelle Hodkin writes is hypnotic. It draws you right in, and you feel as if you
are in Miami with Mara, her family, and friends. It is very easy to sympathize with Mara and
all she is going through. Her “episodes”
and “hallucinations” feel so real, and let you really get inside her head. It is not long before we get to see exactly
what is going on with Mara, and understand more as to why she is “around” at
certain times and witnessing certain incidents.
When Mara starts her new preppy private school, to say the
least, she is not treated very well.
Here is where her brother, Daniel as well as her friend Jamie are her
saving graces. Jamie has been on Mara’s
side since her arrival, and acts as her friend, confidant and tutor. While Jamie has his own reputation, he seems
determined to make sure Mara doesn’t get hated on. Mara's hallucinations only get worse upon moving, and it is clear that this is her minds way of helping her remember what happened the night her friends died.
Then enter Noah Shaw. The gorgeous
guy. The one with the womanizer
reputation. The one who Mara clearly has
her eye on from day one. Strangly
though, the guy who can have ANY GIRL seems
to be looking at her too…Once the story unravels and Noah and Mara finally get past their flirty banter, a real relationship unfolds. A beautiful one at that. Noah is so much more than meets the eye, and Mara just had to give him a chance before writing him off. He would do literally anything for her. And as it turns out.. they have a special “connection” which I will leave you readers to find out on your own. J
Once the relationship continues, and Mara gets the help she needs for the trauma she has undergone, weird events start to take place, and Mara and Noah both seem to be the common factor in several of them. These two each have a “gift” of sorts, and it can either go all wrong or all right. The rest is on Mara, and her faith in both herself, and Noah.
The hallucinations as well as the realization of what is really going on with her mind, allow us (and Mara!) to see what REALLY went
on that dreadful night in the asylum, especially with Alex. And this leads up to an absolutely DEVESTATING
cliffhanger. Damn you,
cliffhangers!
THOUGHTS:
This book was amazing, from start to finish. There is no point when I had that inevitable, "okay, moving on.. get to the point already!" feeling. Straight through, it was a fast-moving story, with characters that stay with you long after you finish the last page. Hodkin's literary style is spell-bounding. And while I typically don't like books where there is a "super-natural-y" element, this was different. It all came together and made for a wonderful story that needed that simple element to glue it all together.
