The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
Michelle Hodkin
464 pages
Publisher:
Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Release Date:
September 27, 2011
Source:
Purchased from local bookstore at launch party
My Rating: ★★★★★

Book Summary

Mara Dyer doesn’t believe 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 strangely unharmed. There is.

She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love. She’s wrong.

Book Review

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is one of those books that you either really love or you really hate. Before purchasing and reading the book I had read mixed reviews about it which only made me more curious. I did not have an advance readers copy of it so I waited until the book’s release. It just so happens that I am from Miami, Florida, where the story takes place and also where the book’s launch party took place, so I attended and had the pleasure of meeting Michelle Hodkin and getting my copy of Mara signed.

I am one of those that just loved The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. First of all, that cover. Just wow. The whole time I was reading I was thinking Dexter Morgan and Gothika both of which I love, coupled with the fact, as I mentioned before, that it takes place in Miami, my hometown. Mara Dyer, as is her pseudonym and not her real name, is apparently a very normal girl with very normal friends and a very normal boyfriend, whose life completely changes after an “accident” takes place in her hometown of Rhode Island. Mara has no recollection of the accident or how she even got to be present there as she wakes up in the hospital with her family watching over her and with the horrible news that her best friend and boyfriend are dead. In order to get Mara’s mind off her loss, her family picks up and moves to Miami to start over. Little did they know what was about to unravel.

As I mentioned in the beginning of my review, this book reminded me of Dexter and Gothika at the same time. This is because the book has a supernatural feel to it. People are turning up dead in inexplicable ways but what is weirder is that these people deserved it, in Mara’s mind. Mara is having what she thinks are hallucinations attributed to her PTSD, only those hallucinations are coming true. Is Mara responsible for all these deaths? Noah, the British bad boy at her school, certainly doesn’t think so. Oh Noah, totally swoon-worthy and for the love of all that is holy, has a British accent, that is enough to do me in.

I enjoyed this book so much I am giving it 5 stars for being different, entertaining, funny, snarky and mysterious. This book will have you googling places and words and will introduce you to a different side of the city of Miami and it’s not the gorgeous beach-filled night-life paradise you are probably accustomed to. This book is a definite MUST HAVE.

Happy to recommend some great books for you to explore.