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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
3.5 stars
This series continues to be a compelling read, and I think this was probably the best book of the three. We get a lot more explanation about why things happened and also much more of the crazy times Mara is really in for as she becomes what she was meant to be.
That said, I wanted a bit "more" all around, and that would have bumped the rating up a bit for me. I'm ok with the somewhat ambiguous ending.
This series continues to be a compelling read, and I think this was probably the best book of the three. We get a lot more explanation about why things happened and also much more of the crazy times Mara is really in for as she becomes what she was meant to be.
That said, I wanted a bit "more" all around, and that would have bumped the rating up a bit for me. I'm ok with the somewhat ambiguous ending.
Spoiler
Noah and Mara are only 17 after all, and their natures seem to preclude any solid conclusion now about what will come about as a result of their choice to stay together regardless of the dire predictions.
I know a lot of people did not like the conclusion to this trilogy, but I absolutely loved it. I think it was exactly what needed to happen, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Not a lot of Noah Shaw, but we got a lot of Jamie Roth, so I think it was a fair trade-off.
I reviewed the entire trilogy here on my blog, YA, By the Way!
I reviewed the entire trilogy here on my blog, YA, By the Way!
So this was the third book in the Mara Dyer series, and I said in my review for book two that I felt as though the series kind of lost itself towards the end of the last book a little bit. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t feel as though this book picked itself up at any point. I blasted through reading it in about 2 days (mostly because I was on a weekend away) but I didn’t really find any interest or determination to reach the conclusion.
The pacing of the book kind of fell flat for me; it just seemed to be 470 pages of nothing happening and no build up to anything and no character development or working towards an end game. When the book did wrap up, for me it was incredibly anti-climactic. I’m repeating myself here but nothing really happened. I’m struggling to write anything as a review for this book because of this.
It is unfortunate, because I have no issues at all Michelle Hodkin’s writing style. She’s very well written and her books have been easy to read; the trilogy just falls down on plot in my opinion.
The one thing I did like was the final paragraph. It felt like it brought the trilogy back to the start and brought it all full circle; it’s just a shame it didn’t feel as though anything happened in this book. A disappointing conclusion.
My rating: 5.5/10
The pacing of the book kind of fell flat for me; it just seemed to be 470 pages of nothing happening and no build up to anything and no character development or working towards an end game. When the book did wrap up, for me it was incredibly anti-climactic. I’m repeating myself here but nothing really happened. I’m struggling to write anything as a review for this book because of this.
It is unfortunate, because I have no issues at all Michelle Hodkin’s writing style. She’s very well written and her books have been easy to read; the trilogy just falls down on plot in my opinion.
The one thing I did like was the final paragraph. It felt like it brought the trilogy back to the start and brought it all full circle; it’s just a shame it didn’t feel as though anything happened in this book. A disappointing conclusion.
My rating: 5.5/10
4.25⭐️ the ending!! what a roller coaster of a trilogy, love love love these characters
The wait to get my hands on the audiobook of The Retribution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin seemed like a long one with the cruel cliffhanger I was faced with in The Evolution of Mara Dyer. The mind blowing, twisted, breath-holding plot continued and I removed my ear-buds both satisfied and spent. Hodkin gave us one heck of a ride with her unreliable narrator and twisted plot. Gads!
One of the things I like most about this trilogy is that each novel has been stronger as Hodkin lured me into this crazy impossible rabbit hole of manifestations, conspiracy and fated romance. The tale picks up back on the island with the testing and soon we are lost within the pages.
While Mara can be annoying and frustrating it is her strength and tenacious search for answers, as well as her unwavering loyalty that had made this unreliable narrator endearing. Secondary characters are further developed as the author slowly stitched all the pieces of this impressive quilt together and a picture began to emerge.
I have spent most of the series looking for clues and trying to piece together what is reality. Hodkin weaved in another story throughout this final book taking us back through other life times and the revelations were mind-blowing. Villains, abilities and Mara’s friends had me flipping the pages.
The romance? Sorry darling spoilers. I love Noah. That. Is. All.
There is so much I want to talk about, but the synopsis is so vague. I think this journey is best discovered on your own. I will say this; the revelations are fascinating and the tale takes some dark turns. There are moments I wanted to scream in frustration and I was never truly sure of where Hodkin would ultimately leave us. There are fantastic gut wrenching scenes with beloved characters and secondary characters. We experience the characters fear, uncover clues with them and feel moments of absolute desperation. Hodkin does weave in moments of humor and gives us glimpses of the once normal adolescents before these events marred their lives. The clinic, experiments, testing, and truth of it all is brilliant. It is all quite maddening, really, if you think about it. I would love to sit down and share coffee with the author. Her mind is diabolical and it is clear she has been in total control of this tale from the onset.
Christy Romano has made listening an absolute pleasure. Her inflection and unique voices for the characters added an additional element of enjoyment. Her pacing and tone notched up the suspense and the hours slipped by in the blink of an eye.This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Book Reviewer
One of the things I like most about this trilogy is that each novel has been stronger as Hodkin lured me into this crazy impossible rabbit hole of manifestations, conspiracy and fated romance. The tale picks up back on the island with the testing and soon we are lost within the pages.
While Mara can be annoying and frustrating it is her strength and tenacious search for answers, as well as her unwavering loyalty that had made this unreliable narrator endearing. Secondary characters are further developed as the author slowly stitched all the pieces of this impressive quilt together and a picture began to emerge.
I have spent most of the series looking for clues and trying to piece together what is reality. Hodkin weaved in another story throughout this final book taking us back through other life times and the revelations were mind-blowing. Villains, abilities and Mara’s friends had me flipping the pages.
The romance? Sorry darling spoilers. I love Noah. That. Is. All.
There is so much I want to talk about, but the synopsis is so vague. I think this journey is best discovered on your own. I will say this; the revelations are fascinating and the tale takes some dark turns. There are moments I wanted to scream in frustration and I was never truly sure of where Hodkin would ultimately leave us. There are fantastic gut wrenching scenes with beloved characters and secondary characters. We experience the characters fear, uncover clues with them and feel moments of absolute desperation. Hodkin does weave in moments of humor and gives us glimpses of the once normal adolescents before these events marred their lives. The clinic, experiments, testing, and truth of it all is brilliant. It is all quite maddening, really, if you think about it. I would love to sit down and share coffee with the author. Her mind is diabolical and it is clear she has been in total control of this tale from the onset.
Christy Romano has made listening an absolute pleasure. Her inflection and unique voices for the characters added an additional element of enjoyment. Her pacing and tone notched up the suspense and the hours slipped by in the blink of an eye.This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Book Reviewer
Heartbreaking and I'm going to miss Noah Shaw so much. T_T
NOTE: THIS REVIEW IS PUBLISHED AFTER MY FIRST REREAD OF THE TRILOGY.
If I'm honest, this book is a bit of a hot mess. The first 3/4 of the book are pretty messy, and not just because of how gory and terrifying the events are or because Mara spends half of it drifting in and out of consciousness. The plot never seems to settle or stabilize until the big damning scene we've been waiting for, which is a breath of fresh air because it's FINALLY happening. But I'll hand it to her, most of this series I was marveling at just how many crisscrossing tiny details there were and the noting the exorbitant amount of subplots that would need to be resolved and thought, "There's no way she can pull this off." And she does. Not a single string is left untied at the end.
All deserved praise aside, this book was far from perfect. A lot of choices seem noncommittal (Stella was a huge help for half of the book and then just up and disappeared? Very reminiscent of the one character John Steinbeck forgot about while writing The Grapes Of Wrath who just walks off toward the end of the book.) The main gang is very mobile for half of the book, but other authors (namely Alexandra Bracken of The Darkest Minds) have tackled this same road bump (pun intended) and have stuck the landing with grace, whereas Hodkin tumbled a little and managed to pick herself back up just in time to face off with the bad guys.
A tiny nitpicky aspect of Michelle Hodkin's writing that bugs me that I can't help but mention is just how many chapters there are. Frequently, chapters will be anywhere from three to five pages long. The reason is because Hodkin loves to write the final line of the chapter that drops the hammer on the reader. But after having the hammer dropped on me seventy-three times (plus an epilogue!) I'm exhausted. I would much rather continue reading the chapter than have to look at the obvious flag she's staked in the ground when the next chapter just continues on from that moment. There could easily have only been twenty-five chapters in this book if it was more condensed. Nitpicky, like I said, but worth noting.
The biggest thing I couldn't stand during this book was the POV of Mara's grandmother. I think Hodkin tried to write in a different style, one more fitting to the setting and time period, but fell short. Instead, every chapter of hers was boring and hard to understand and I found myself dreading them. They were necessary, as her grandmother's memories play a HUGE part in revealing the core of the conflict, but I wish they had been written better so that I would have enjoyed them more.
Another note-worthy comment is that these books are a raging trigger warning. Gore, self-harm, sexual assault, hallucinations, mental illness, just about everything gets touched on in this book. However, these books are not their triggers. This is not a book about self-harming, it is merely a byproduct of the circumstances. Nor is it glorified, which is good. Reading about it made my wrists ache sympathetically, but I could do it.
All this being said, this book is worth reading just for chapter seventy-three alone. What a beautiful, glorious piece of writing. It's what the reader has been waiting for these three books and she gives it to us and more. And the epilogue is beautifully bright, contrasting the dark and edgy tone of the rest of the books, but it leaves the reader feeling uplifted. Whether I should or not, I really do love these books. Mara Dyer is possibly the most dramatic YA heroine out there, but it is warranted. These books make me laugh, make me cry, and they make me hit my neighbor to whisper-scream, "She just woke up next to a corpse and has to cut out its eye!!!" In the few years it's been since I first read these books, I had managed to forget what a wild ride they were, especially this last book. I can't wait to reread them again in a few years and finally track the number combinations in my book like I planned to.
If I'm honest, this book is a bit of a hot mess. The first 3/4 of the book are pretty messy, and not just because of how gory and terrifying the events are or because Mara spends half of it drifting in and out of consciousness. The plot never seems to settle or stabilize until the big damning scene we've been waiting for, which is a breath of fresh air because it's FINALLY happening. But I'll hand it to her, most of this series I was marveling at just how many crisscrossing tiny details there were and the noting the exorbitant amount of subplots that would need to be resolved and thought, "There's no way she can pull this off." And she does. Not a single string is left untied at the end.
All deserved praise aside, this book was far from perfect. A lot of choices seem noncommittal (Stella was a huge help for half of the book and then just up and disappeared? Very reminiscent of the one character John Steinbeck forgot about while writing The Grapes Of Wrath who just walks off toward the end of the book.) The main gang is very mobile for half of the book, but other authors (namely Alexandra Bracken of The Darkest Minds) have tackled this same road bump (pun intended) and have stuck the landing with grace, whereas Hodkin tumbled a little and managed to pick herself back up just in time to face off with the bad guys.
A tiny nitpicky aspect of Michelle Hodkin's writing that bugs me that I can't help but mention is just how many chapters there are. Frequently, chapters will be anywhere from three to five pages long. The reason is because Hodkin loves to write the final line of the chapter that drops the hammer on the reader. But after having the hammer dropped on me seventy-three times (plus an epilogue!) I'm exhausted. I would much rather continue reading the chapter than have to look at the obvious flag she's staked in the ground when the next chapter just continues on from that moment. There could easily have only been twenty-five chapters in this book if it was more condensed. Nitpicky, like I said, but worth noting.
The biggest thing I couldn't stand during this book was the POV of Mara's grandmother. I think Hodkin tried to write in a different style, one more fitting to the setting and time period, but fell short. Instead, every chapter of hers was boring and hard to understand and I found myself dreading them. They were necessary, as her grandmother's memories play a HUGE part in revealing the core of the conflict, but I wish they had been written better so that I would have enjoyed them more.
Another note-worthy comment is that these books are a raging trigger warning. Gore, self-harm, sexual assault, hallucinations, mental illness, just about everything gets touched on in this book. However, these books are not their triggers. This is not a book about self-harming, it is merely a byproduct of the circumstances. Nor is it glorified, which is good. Reading about it made my wrists ache sympathetically, but I could do it.
All this being said, this book is worth reading just for chapter seventy-three alone. What a beautiful, glorious piece of writing. It's what the reader has been waiting for these three books and she gives it to us and more. And the epilogue is beautifully bright, contrasting the dark and edgy tone of the rest of the books, but it leaves the reader feeling uplifted. Whether I should or not, I really do love these books. Mara Dyer is possibly the most dramatic YA heroine out there, but it is warranted. These books make me laugh, make me cry, and they make me hit my neighbor to whisper-scream, "She just woke up next to a corpse and has to cut out its eye!!!" In the few years it's been since I first read these books, I had managed to forget what a wild ride they were, especially this last book. I can't wait to reread them again in a few years and finally track the number combinations in my book like I planned to.