Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

Title: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

Author: Michelle Hodkin

Publication Date: September 27, 2011

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.

My Thoughts:

Have you ever read a book so good that when you were done you didn't dare pick up another book to read because you just KNOW that whatever comes after can't be nearly as awesome as what you just read? I am so stuck in that situation. I just finished reading The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin and it was A-MAZ-ING! I don't even have the words to express how much I loved this book. Seriously. This whole post will probably just be me babbling on and on and sounding like an idiot. But anyway, here goes:

Mara Dyer wakes to find herself in the hospital with no memory as to how she got there. All she knows is that three of her friends, boyfriend and best friend included, are dead. She is the only survivor of the accident that killed them but she can't remember anything about it. Dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Mara's family moves away to give her a new start in a fresh place so she won't be reminded daily of what she has lost. Her mother is over-protective and watches her every move, her father is working on a big court case and never home, and her two brothers can do no wrong.

Unfortunately, moving has done little to help Mara get through her grief. She starts imagining things and slowly gains chunks of memory back from the night of the accident. She thinks she is losing her mind but doesn't want her mother to worry more so she keeps it to herself. This doesn't go well. Enter Noah, the ridiculously hot, British womanizer at her new school. He has his sights set on her and she can't seem to resist his charm even after been warned by friend and relentlessly tortured by her classmates.

Mara and Noah have a love/hate relationship and just when you think you have the rest of the book figured out... BAM! Huge surprise, huge! You are totally blown away with something you didn't see coming. But even though I was shocked at this, I can't say I was surprised at the ending. There were some pretty obvious clues along the way.

My only issue with the book, and it's only because it's a pet peeve of mine, was that there were some typos and errors towards the end of the book. Some missing quotation marks, or quotation marks in the wrong place, an extra word or a comma when it should have been a period. Seriously though, I just notice these things for whatever reason and hate that I can't ignore them. But obviously whoever was proof-reading this book was so immersed in it that they forgot what they were doing. Who can blame them :)

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is probably the best book I have read this year, and there have been some amazingly awesome books so far. If you love YA, I promise you will not be disappointed. Just look at that gorgeous cover! That alone should be enough to convince you to read this book, but if not then how about this: Noah may knock Peeta out of first place for sexiest, most swoon-worthy literary man of the century. Yea, he's that hot...

I bet that got your attention. Now go buy this book!

Buy it here: Amazon BN.com