Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer 

by Michelle Hodkin

Release Date: September 27, 2011

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

Age Group: Young Adult

Rating: 1 2 3 4 5

Series: Book 1 in the Mara Dyer series

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:

Cover: Truth be told, the only reason I wanted to pick up this book was because I loved the cover. I didn't really know what it was about. I also like the fact that you're not sure if the boy is hugging or drowning her (but I'm pretty sure it's the former, as he's trying to stop her from drowning).

Writing: (5/5) At the beginning, Mara writes a letter that seems like it was written some time in the future. The rest of the book is written in first person past tense. Mara is reaccounting her story to us and I feel that narration in itself is very important as the story continues on in the sequels.

Mara's narrative is a very, very personal one. So personal that when I read it, I felt and saw the world from her eyes on a very deep level and the hallucinations felt as real to me as they did to her. The flaw with first person has always been that the story is filtered through the eyes of the main character and what you see is, quite possibly, not very accurate. That is especially true in The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer and is, well, what I felt the whole book revolved around.

Setting: (2.5/5) Mara moves from Laurelton, Rhode Island to Miami, Florida and there she starts a new private school. Now the setting wasn't anything special and I found student life at the private school to be, well, stereotypical. There wasn't anything new or fresh.

Plot: (5/5) OK, the plot had to be one of my favourite parts of the book. It was all over the place (in a good way). I could not even attempt to guess what would happen next, and I felt like I got shattered each time a new revelation was made. I was just completely swept away by the story and it was all the more distorted with Mara's hallucinations. You're always never quite sure if what's happening is real or not as you see the story unfold through Mara's eyes.

Main Character: (5/5) Mara's best friend and boyfriend died in a building collapse and Mara does not remember this incident and what occurred on this day when she wakes up at the hospital. She's left with post-traumatic stress disorder and is constantly hallucinating, unable to tell the difference between reality and her hallucinations. Mara's wasn't a character with a unique or distinctive personality really, but her hallucinations, how her grasp on reality slowly unravels, now that is what makes her an intriguing character. Every step of the way, I felt like I was unraveling with her. There was just no way I could tell if whatever happened was real or not. I felt just as helpless as her. 

Villain: (4/5) One of the antagonist was this very stereotypical girl, who hates Mara because of the interest Noah (this popular boy at school) shows for her. That's the reason I'm giving this a 4. But throughout the book, we're not sure who the main antagonist is. As we get closer and closer to the end of the book, it gets even more confusing. This whole mystery of who's behind the recent disappearances is just as as distorting as Mara's hallucinations as Hodkin's keeps throwing us off course.

Other Characters: (4/5)
The Dyer Family: I really enjoyed that Mara's family (her parents, older brother, and younger brother) played such a central role in the story. They were a firm part of Mara's life and their life has also been thrown off course because of Mara's post traumatic disorder. Despite that, they try their best for her sake and help her in any way they can and I loved the close bond they shared as a family.
Noah: Although I did enjoy Noah's character and the author seemed to try to give him depth and layers, the largest let down about him was that his character was pretty stereotypical. Popular boy, uses girls like tissue papers, rich, his past, seems to like the main female lead for no concise reason compared to other girls. However, as revelations that connect him to Mara were made, his character started feeling more original to me.

Romance: (3/5) Like I said, I didn't understand why Noah fell so hard for Mara and vice versa. It happened way too fast and wasn't that great to read about in the beginning half. After some important revelations concerning Noah and Mara were made later on in the book, their romance starting getting better as they faced many problems that came with these revelations.

Overall: (28.5/35) Although it contains some stereotypical elements, what made The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer such a great read was the mystery, a plot that you have no hope of predicting, and the story all seen from the eyes of a main character that can't grasp reality, and every step of the way I felt like I was slowly unraveling with her.