Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
by Michelle Hodkin

Release Date: September 27, 2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 452
Genre: YA Paranormal 
Source: Library
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble  |  Book Depository 
Haunt Author: Website | Blog | Twitter

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.

The beginning prologue definitely drew me right into the story. It opens with Mara and her two friends playing with a Ouija board and they ask how Mara's friend will die. The Ouija board spells out Mara. Then six months later, Mara wakes up in the hospital. She doesn't remember anything that happened but is told that she, her best friend Rachel, her boyfriend Jude, and his sister, were all in an abandoned asylum when it collapsed, killing all of them except her.

Mara desperately wants to put this tragedy behind her so they move. Mara continues to have visions. She believes they are just part of her post traumatic stress syndrome. She will walk into the classroom and see it falling apart. But then she begins to have visions that come true. She hates this dog abuser and pictures him dead. Then walking home from school he turns out to be dead, just the way she pictured it.

At school she meets the typical hot bad boy, Noah. Noah is known as the school heart-breaker and man whore. Typical YA love interest and he didn't do too much for me. He has some sweet and hot quotes. He was slightly entertaining but was just missing something for me. He also has the typical something important in common with Mara that ends up binding them together. You have to read to find out because it will spoil the book if I tell you.

Overall the book was intriguing. It kept me turning the pages to find out what happened to Mara and her friends that night. The visions leave questions but by the end everything is pretty much explained with some twists and surprises. I understood her visions, what happened that night, and all about Noah. The book leaves off with a big cliffhanger so I'll definitely have to read the next one.

"You're supposed to say, 'All I want is your happiness. I'll do whatever it takes, even if it means being without you.'" "Sorry," Noah said. "I'm just not that big of a person."

"What would you do if I kissed you right now?" I stared at his beautiful face and his beautiful mouth and I wanted nothing more than to taste it. "I would kiss you back."

"You want me as much as I want you. And all I want is you." My tongue warred with my mind. "Today," I whispered. Noah stood slowly, his body skimming mine as he rose. "Today. Tonight. Tomorrow. Forever."

Rating: 4/5 Stars!