Amaterasu Reads: Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

A book magically appeared on your doorstep this week. It was beautiful. You picked it up and it was very... alluring.

So you read. And then you read some more. And you plowed into the story, with a single minded purpose of devouring the book until you're satisfied. And you laughed, and you got exasperated, and you swooned, and you held your breath, and you shook with fear, and just when you thought you were almost there, the promise of a big ending within your grasp...

You ran out of pages to read.

That, I felt as I tried flipping on the pages and see the acknowledgements instead. And then I tried, to no avail, shaking the book to see if a few more pages will magically appear so I can read some more.

Title: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
Pages: 450
Release Date: September 27th 2011
Published by: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Source: Marketing (Thank you, Amy!!!)
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Summary (from Goodreads):

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.

Mara Dyer has PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), or maybe she's just losing her mind. Her friends died that night they decided to test their fears in an old mansion, but Mara couldn't remember how they died. And why she's the only one alive. She thought moving will help, so move they did. Mara went to a new school to try and live life anew and maybe, remember. But Mara knew she was broken beyond repair, and the visions, the hallucinations, seeing all her dead friends only proves that she's crazy. Entered a boy named Noah Shaw, who seems to know her even before he laid his eyes on her. How? And why can't Noah stay away from her?

Allow me to say this: you will believe Mara. You will believe that everything she was going through was real. That what was going on wasn't just inside of her head, that she wasn't just imagining it. Or maybe it was you who was losing your mind. The lines blur between what was reality and what was not. Then Michelle Hodkin will flip your world upside down and you wouldn't know what hit you. And you start questioning yourself again if what you've read was really what you've read. I must be suffering hallucinations as well when I was reading Mara Dyer. It messed up with my mind!

I have never seen two people who are as broken as Mara and Noah. But be that as it may, Noah wanted to try his best to fix Mara. "Let me try", he said. And that in itself defied all the expectations and all the speculations I have, which you will also have, of this boy. He's a ladies man, and he knew he's good looking, he's exasperating, rich beyond boredom, and like Mara, he just wants to figure out himself. He's the bad boy your mom warned you about yet you couldn't help but be attracted to. Noah will definitely make the list of your top fictional YA boys you wish were real, I guarantee you. There was so much to love and hate in this boy.

What's so good in Mara Dyer is that while the lines blur between reality and nightmare, there was enough material in the book which can make you forget that it's paranormal. Just when you thought it was an ordinary, contemporary book about a girl trying to cope with the deaths of her friends while fending off a boy everyone says is bad for her, the mystery and the paranormal elements weave itself into the story.

My only concern in this book, is that so much was left hanging even by the end. Readers will find themselves asking "now what?". But with an ending that kills, Mara Dyer will leave the readers craving for the sequel!

Mara Dyer is intensity defined. It's sexy and scorching hot, fast paced. It's like being in the eye of a storm, calm inside, until you decide to step out of the center, and all hell breaks loose. One moment everything seems calm and okay and in a blink, everything seems wrong. Scary. But it wasn't just the story that was scary, Mara scared me too, with what she was capable of and how unstable she seems. There were moments that will surely muddle your whole perception of the story, and I think that's just fantastic. It keeps you guessing until the very end. Filled with surprises and riddled with clues which encourages the readers to piece together Mara's story, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is just fantastic! Michelle Hodkin will leave the readers wanting so much more well after they have leafed through the last pages of this wonderful debut.

Bravo, Michelle Hodkin, Bravo!

What are you doing still reading this review?
You have to buy a copy of Mara now!

Content (plot, story flow, character):
SEXY. SUPER. SEXY.