A review by marianneereads
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

4.0

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is definitely not a "what you see is what you get book". I was initially drawn to this because of the beautiful cover, because yes, I actually am part of the grand mayority that do judge a book by it's cover. I then got even more interested in the book when I read the blurb:

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.


By this point, I'm thinking the story would go down something like this: bland girl meets seemingly perfect boy that takes an interest in her, she's got skeletons in her closet (figuratively, of course)and doesn't want to get involved. Then her past makes an appearance, breaks them up and then they get back together again.

Typical YA Romance right? Wrong .

This book was so different than that. First of all, I didn't even know this was a paranormal romance type of book. I just thought it was a YA non-paranormal, so I was greatly surprised when I was faced with some of those elements.

I cannot comprehend why there are so many low reviews for this book. I do understand that this book is one of those that you either like or hate, so maybe that's where this could come from. I honestly liked it very much. Michelle Hodkin captivated me since the prologue. The motivation to keep me reading was the fact that there were still secrets that needed to appear.

I loved the main character, Mara Dyer. She's not an otherworldly creature ( THANK GOD ), so you could really relate to her. She's snarky and sarcastic and witty, which is what I always love about main heroines. I don't enjoy the stupid Mary-Sues that most authors write about just to make them more "attractive". I also loved the fact that it wasn't overly emphasized that Mara was a "smart" person. Most of the time authors repeat again and again how many "AP classes" the heroine takes, just to make her extremely näive and stupid. So, what I'm trying to say is that Mara could act "stupid" (which she didn't, by the way), because the author didn't have to create the perfect image of her. I found myself in a way thinking "wow, I would totally say that. I am so much like Mara", which is what every author would love to see happen in their novels.

I have to say, WHERE CAN I FIND MYSELF A NOAH SHAW? Seriously, this guy is amazing. British, brave and beautiful, just amazing. I loved the way love could gradually evolve in the story between them, because it felt real.

Michelle Hodkin really knows how to end a story. She literally made me want to punch a wall when I reached the last page. There's just something about suspense that really gets to you.

Before reading: I expected a tame, mystery/instalove story.
What I actually got: a fast paced, thrilling paranormal mystery/love story.

My rating? Probably about 4 to 4.5 stars.