The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
Author: Mitchelle Hodkin
456 pages/ 40 Chapters
Date published : September 2011
Genre: Paranormal YA
Book Description:
Mara Dyer believes life can't 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 strangely unharmed.
There is.
She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love.
She's wrong.
So this story is told from Mara's P.O.V. and it has no changes to other characters. This mainly because we're seeing everything through her eyes as she's struggling to figure out what's happening around her.
Mara is a typical high school girl with insecurities and wishing to monopolize her best friend and when a new gilr moves to their school and tries to squeeze in their friend circle she does anything to keep her spot as best friend. We don't know much about the accident nor what happened before, we only get brief flashbacks as Mara is trying to recover her missing memories and move on with her life.
She's having visions that only she can see, she's having nightmares and is depressed. Her family moves to Florida, as far as they can get away from their northern hometown in hopes that Mara does better. In her new school shes the weird kid who doesn't quiet manage to fit in. She meets a single friend whom advises her to keep clear of a particular boy, Shaw, she doesn't try to get close to him but they manage to circle each other.
Shaw is the typical bad boy every girl wants including Anna, the reigning queen of the school and she's determined to humiliate Mara simply because Shaw has paid attention to her. Mara is not ladylike in the way that she speaks like a sailor and doens't like to keep quiet about her opinion. And something about her attracts Shaw to the new girl. Mara does everything in her power, being rude, insulting, walking away from him and yet Noah doesn't back down completely.
The development between Noah and Mara is not bad, I like it when the protagonist and the love interest go from dislike to love and it is somewhat gradual at least on Mara's part she's strting to warm up to the bad boy Noah even if she's trying to stop herself from falling for the guy after all his reputation precedes him.
Also even half way through the book the reader is unable to know for certain if Mara has somehow developed abilities to talk to the dead or if she's simply hallucinating.
Another thing I like about this book is the family dynamics. The mother a loving caring woman, the father a very calm alluring man and two brothers who love and support Mara. She has a grand life, until things go south and now she struggles with possibly her sanity.
Even if she's receiving support form all her family it takes a while before Mara comes clean and tells anyon about the hallucinations and the things that happen in her nightmares. She behaves like a typical girl when the dr or her parents suggest she seeks profesional help. Initially Mara is complete against the idea until she meets her dr and actually decides to give it a sincere go at it.
She discovers powers she doesn't understand and someone else whose abilities cannon be understood, and yet you're still wondering what is happening?
It is a very confusing story nd yet you're too invested in it and feel the need to keep going. I couldn't read it fast enough, I so like this and yet I find it frustrating at the same time. Weird mixed feelings there.
I gave it a 4 out of 5 stars becuase it does feel too confusing at times but overall I really enjoy this book.
Comments
Post a Comment