The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkin

Title: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
Author: Michelle Hodkin
Release Date: September 27th, 2011, hardcover
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

Group: Young Adult Literature

Rating:★★★

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.

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The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer starts out very interesting and intriguing. Mara and her three friends, Rachel, Claire, and Jude go to a haunted asylum in the middle night. Mara then wakes up in a hospital bed to realize everybody died when the building collapsed and that she was the only person who survives it. The story then starts to talk about her new life and to understand these hallucinations she starts to have, meanwhile she meets the ultimate bad boy Noah Shaw.

I was sadly disappointed with this book. I have heard nothing else but people talk about how awesome this book is! The hype is crazy and the way people talk about Noah reminds me of the next Edward Cullen. I felt like my expectations for this book were pretty high. I expected it to be amazing and I would be obsessing about the characters just like everybody else, but if anything I am hugely annoyed at this book.

The mystery in this story is pretty predictable. There wasn't anything scary about it at all. I was able to understand what was happening right when we got to meet her first victim in Miami (the dog owner). The mysteriousness of the novel just fell absolutely flat. I also don't feel like Mara's condition was thoroughly explained enough. Hopefully that will be addressed in the next book. Paranormal horror stories do not scare me, which is why I was hoping it was a real life condition she was having.

The major problem I had with this book was Noah. There wasn't anything epic about their relationship. It was the typical YA couple hook up that I have read in about every other book. It was so cheesy and unoriginal. This whole book surrounds about Noah and why he is attractive to Mara. I was more interested in why these people were dropping dead around Mara, rather than trying to figure if Noah had slept with every girl in the senior and junior class.

I do have to give credit to Michelle Hodkin for that lovely twisted ending. I totally didn't see that coming. Kudos to Hodkin, that is why I gave this book three stars instead of two. I really hope that will be a huge part of the next book, instead of Mara and Noah flirting on every other page.

I can see why people love this book. I wish that I could love it too. I might have if I had read a few years ago, before I read amazing books like (TMI, Hunger Games, Divergent, etc...). This book just fell flat for me. I am also confused with the prologue? The letter that she writes telling the reader that her real name isn't Mara Dyer? I felt like the book didn't even explain that. Could someone please explain why that letter was the prologue? I feel bad for writing such a negative review, but there wasn't that much that I liked about it. I just hope that the next book will be a lot better and the plot won't be so thick with romance.

Plot: ★★★★

Characters: ★★★

Writing:★★★

Ending: ★★★★★

Cover: ★★★★★