Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

This is the first book of a trilogy about a young girl NOT named Mara Dyer. It states in the beginning of the book that this is a false name, taken on the advice of a lawyer. Why this is necessary does not really become clear to me in this book, so I have to assume it will be explained in the next ones. The intro does say that it is because she reveals that she is responsible for “the murders”, but she doesn’t reveal anything to anyone but the reader in this book. 

Anyhow, this book is about a girl, Mara, who wakes up in the hospital after an accident where her friends died. She doesn’t remember anything about the accident, but she has nightmares and hallucinations and suggests to her family that they move away from all the memories. She then starts over in a new school, having to deal with hallucinations and mental breakdowns on top of trying to make friends. She does make one friend on her own, Jamie, but he disappears unceremoniously in the middle of the book. She meets another guy, named Noah, and of course they become boyfriend and girlfriend, even though Mara is warned against his bad boy ways by almost everyone she meets.

I can’t really go into more detail now, without spoilers, so if you want to stay spoiler-free stop reading!

Throughout the book Mara has a couple of “episodes” that turn out not to be mental issues, but paranormal issues! And as it turns out, her instant crush, Noah, also has paranormal powers. They decided to try to figure out what is going on with them together, but not until Mara has gone back and forth over the pros and cons of that situation and changed her mind 27 times in 4 pages. 

And then the cliffhanger happens. The one that is supposed to keep us interested enough to pick up the next book. But it just came out of NOWHERE! I was wondering what the next two books would be about, since the issue of Mara not remembering her accident was resolved in this book, but with cliffhangers like that, pulled out of thin air, this series could go on forever. 

Now I had heard a lot of good things about this book out and about, which is why I decided to read the series. It was introduced as “scary” and “a mystery” and that kind of made me a little bit wary of reading it just before bedtime. But you can easily read it at night alone in your house in a thunderstorm when the electricity is out, because it is not really scary at all! Anything bad that happens isn’t really scary as such, and mostly I found the book pretty boring actually. It is really slow-paced and drawn out, and when there finally is some action it is pretty confusing. Because of Mara’s “mental issues” a lot of things are passed off as hallucinations, so we don’t know what’s real and what’s not, which makes it hard to keep up with the story. For instance she “hallucinates” seeing something on the news, and it is brushed off as not real. But then in the end, something happens (the cliffhanger) and OH! Maybe the news thing was real after all! That really bugged me! Does she have PTSD or is it all real (/paranormal)?!

I also found it really hard to believe that Mara’s mother, a psychiatrist, would allow her daughter to not have professional treatment after an accident of that sort, and that the family up and moves to a different state, on Mara’s suggestion without consulting some sort of mental health professional.  

There were a few times when ominous hints were given, but then nothing happened about it. Like one time Mara says she told Noah that they would talk later “but we never got the chance”. Which, to me, sounds like Noah is going to die or whatever. But nothing like that happens. They talk the very next day…what? And the whole Joseph thing bothered me too. It seemed like a really convoluted way to tell Noah’s story and for him and Mara to bond over their paranormal abilities. 

The lovestory seemed like typical YA insta-love to me. Mara meets the hot bad boy of the schoolyard and pretends to hate him, even though her brain stops working whenever she even thinks of him. And they finally get together when Noah saves her from humiliation in front of the entire school, and she finds out that “he is more than what he seems”…Uuuuhh! 

I gave this book 2 stars on Goodreads. I don’t have any plans to continue this series. I am practicing my resolve to not finish series/books just because I feel like I have to finish what I start. There are other books I would rather be reading right now.