The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
Release Date – September 27, 2011
Publisher – Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Publisher Social Media - Twitter
Pages - 464
My Rating- 10/10
*obtained from Book Expo America for an honest review*

Here is the Goodreads synopsis

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.

Welcome to the first post in my Mara Dyer week. Yup, that’s right - WEEK! This book rocked my world and I am going to be annoying and gush about it constantly.

So the synopsis doesn’t tell us much - and guess what? I am not going to spoil anything either. This book is one of those books that needs to be discovered, revealed and experienced. Please don’t spoil it for yourself as it’s really almost magical what happens while reading it if you are not expecting what’s coming.

Dark, sexy, twisted, WTF, and OMG. These are the words that went through my mind as I reading this book. It literally grabs you from the first page and doesn’t let go.

The writing style is amazing. It’s one of those books where each and every plot point has been thought out and planned for. It’s so lush, beautiful and well written. Michelle can create a mood with just a few words and the timing of her humour is perfect. She builds suspense and intrigue really well. You want to keep reading, you always want to know more.

Mara - I love her. Really I do. I would be friends with her. She’s fragile and broken after the accident. At times she, and the reader, are wondering if she is going crazy. However, there is a strength to her. She is trying to get her life in order, and move on. People are capable of dealing with a lot and Mara reflects this. It makes her very likeable. I enjoyed that she doesn’t remember much about the accident so we are able to take the journey with her. We learn things as she does (mostly) and it makes her really easy to relate to. We can relate to feeling out of place (Mara transfers schools after the accident) and wanting to just blend in in certain situations. The question that is teased with this book “Who is Mara Dyer?”, the answer to this is pretty awesome, and I can’t wait to find out more about her in the next books.

The romance in this book. Sigh...BIG SIGH. Noah Shaw is my book crush right now. The guy I will measure all other book crushes against. I want one of him for my birthday (or Christmas, not fussy). I love how he and Mara balance each other. I love that whenever Noah is snarky, that Mara can dish it right back. Mara has her own stuff going on (hello, she was in an accident that killed her friends, and now weird things are happening) so she makes it clear that she isn’t interested in Noah’s games. LOVE IT! This makes Mara a challenge for him, and he pursues her as a result. I love that he is British (my love affair with the British accent is well known). He ends up being very sweet, and really does care about Mara which makes him even more adorable. The chemistry is off the charts when they are together and they have some of the hottest make out scenes in YA. This is a really sexy book (if Michelle manages to top the sexy in book 2 I might explode). The teasing, and banter between these two is funny, and genuine.

I also want to point out that Michelle’s teenagers FELT like teenagers. They did what I would expect teenagers to do, talked about things like sex, worried about college, dealt with the mean b*@ch in school. I liked that it seemed realistic even with the creepy under current.

The ending of the book…it KILLED me. It is one of the best twists I’ve read in a book. It was something I did NOT expect to happen, and it has me going crazy for book two. It creates a whole new set of questions that I can’t wait to dive into. I am also legitimately scared about what might happen to these characters I already love in book two now. How long exactly until I can read it??!