7. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

Book # 7: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

Author: Michelle Hodkin

Published: September 27, 2011

448 Pages

(Summary 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.

There aren't a lot of ways to explain the plot of this book. We know something is wrong with Mara Dyer. We know she has been through a lot and that she is still trying to figure out what happened the night her friends died. She thinks she's crazy, but I know there must be much to her than we know by the end of this novel.

I don't want to ruin anything that happens in this book because everything that happens is a spoiler. Things are not what they seem, let's keep it at that. We follow Mara as she spins out of control, trying to piece together a part of her life that doesn't make sense all while trying to avoid the way she feels around the gorgeous Noah Shaw. Now Noah is your typical high school playboy. He has a reputation that Mara knows should keep her away from him. He seems a little over the top to me. He has a British accent, lives in a huge house, and can pretty much have anything he wants. And of course, he wants Mara. I know there is much more depth to him and I'm sure we'll discover more about him throughout the series, but on the surface he seems shallow and uninteresting. But who knows, maybe I'd fall for him too.

The secondary characters give us some insight into Mara's home life. We don't know much about her friends from the accident, but I have a feeling we will get to know them better as well throughout the next pieces of this story. Mara's older brother Daniel, keeps Mara as sane as she can be. He is always there for her and will have her back when it comes to their parents. In a way, he reminds me of my older brother and that's probably why I connected with him quickly. Joseph, her younger brother, is too smart for his own good, but also does whatever Mara asks him to for her sake. While her parents may want to put her in a mental institution, we know her brothers would never allow it. We caught a glimpse at her only friend in her new school, Jacob, but he was gone before we could really get to know him. Instead we get lost with Mara as she gets lost in Noah and it is realistic and entertaining.

The course of events throughout the book kept me going to the last page and continuing on in hopes as getting more to the story. The mystery of the accident and everything else Mara has discovered about herself kept me on the edge of my seat. How long do I have to wait to get my answers?

"I was going to kiss him, and I was going to regret it. But at that moment, I couldn't bring myself to care."