The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Title: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

Author: Michelle Hodkin
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

Format: Paperback
Publication Date: September 27, 2011

Overall: 5/5 

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.

 My Review:

Seventeen year old Mara Dyer wakes up in the hospital with amnesia. She was the only one left unharmed after a fatal accident that took the life of her two best friends and boyfriend. No one knows what happened on the night of the accident, and those around Mara are looking at her for the answers. Mara’s family decides that it’s best to move away from Rhode Island to divert the attention from the media and to help Mara recover.

Although Mara’s parents want to protect her from what occurred, Mara can't escape her visions. She keeps seeing her dead friends and boyfriend appear in front of her wherever she goes. When arriving at their new destination, Mara and her older brother Daniel are enrolled at Croyden Academy, a private school in Miami Florida. Mara is instantly befriended by one of the outcast students, Jaime. She also soon grabs the attention of the most popular guy in school, Noah Shaw, who doesn't seem to take no for an answer.

Seeing her dead friends soon becomes the least of Mara's issues when she begins to receive these incredibly intense and scary premonitions of the people she meets that later turn up dead. Will Mara discover the truth about what occurred on the night of the accident?…

The story begins with a broad focus on all of the characters, Mara’s family, her new friend Jaime, then later narrows in on just Mara and Noah. Mara’s family is loving and supportive of her, and really wants her to get better. Jaime is protective of Mara, standing up for her when the popular girl in school and ex-girlfriend of Noah wants to take Mara down. Then there’s the handsome Noah Shaw, he wants to be with Mara but she isn’t ready for a relationship just yet, especially when she’s having visions of her past and premonitions on deaths to occur.

My favorite element of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is having the novel being shared in Mara’s point of view. Readers can grasp everything that Mara is going through, feeling her every emotion, all the questions going through her mind, her confusion, and the difficulty in separating illusion from reality. I personally liked Jaime more than Noah in this story. Noah is your classic misunderstood popular boy, when Jaime isn’t afraid to show who he really is, and connects with Mara right from the start.

Michelle Hodkin is an incredible author who keeps readers on the edge of their seats and guessing the truth about Mara until the very end. The story ends with a jaw-dropping cliffhanger that will leave readers wanting more. 

I absolutely loved the world that Michelle Hodkin has created and I am definitely looking forward to the next installment in this series, The Evolution of Mara Dyer. I recommend The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer to those who enjoy Young Adult Fiction and Psychological Thrillers. To those who have not yet read this novel, THIS IS A MUST READ!

Must Read! Highly Recommended!

**Please Note: This review is my honest opinion and I received no monetary compensation from it.**

Find Michelle Hodkin online:

Official Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Buy The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer online:

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