Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

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'm not sure where to start talking about this book. You see, I started reading it on Friday night last week and reached 1/3 of the way through very quickly. At that point, I was still questioning whether I liked the story or not. Weird, right, that I wouldn't know one way or the other? Well, it's true.

By Saturday, when I delved into it again, I was better able to understand what it was that had me initially confused then, ultimately, enamored with Mara Dyer and Michelle Hodkin. The author has you in the present, then in the past. She has you in Mara's head, which is a touchy area considering her mental faculties are seriously in question. You never know what is real and what is imagined. It is this back and forth feel that keeps you mesmerized, waiting for final clarification of what exactly is happening to this poor, messed up girl. (And did I mention I finished this 450 page book on Saturday?)

More than just the pace and twisted path of the story, it is the chemistry between Mara and Noah, their witty conversations too, that kept me reading on. Mara, as I mentioned above, seems on a downward spiral, with the threat of hospitalization always one step away. Noah is a perfect match for Mara, in that he keeps the "sane" part of her engaged, helping to ground her to some degree. But he is also slowly uncovered as something else, which continually adds to his overall likability.

Through most of the book, I was waiting for the ball to drop. Would Mara crack completely? Was there something external, rather than internal, to blame for it all? Was this book going to have supernatural elements, as so many others do? (For answers to these questions, you'll have to read it for yourself!) Regardless of what conclusions were offered by the end of the story, I was totally invested in Mara's world. It looks like there will be more and I'll be at the front of the line for any further installments.

Michelle Hodkin wrote this book with a little mystery, a little chemistry, and a great amount of suspense. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer was a winner all around for me!

Available at Book Depository, Chapters, Simon and Schuster Canada