The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin || Review

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is one of those books that's been around for a LONG time. I've heard good and bad things about this book, and the rest of the series, and I wanted to read it for myself for so long. After writing my Series I Haven't Read/Finished post I realised just how much I'd wanted to read this when it came out. I decided I was in the mood for it and FINALLY picked it up.

Author: Michelle Hodkin ⬥ Series: Mara Dyer #1 ⬥ Published on: 27th September 2011 

⬥ Genres: Young Adult, Paranormal ⬥ Format: E-book ⬥ Source: Purchased

Amazon | Goodreads

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Synopsis

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.

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My Rating

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My Review
This book was released in 2011...I'm honestly baffled. It's taken me 6 YEARS to read it. I'm pretty sure that's a record. I heard a lot about this book when it was first released and I really wanted to read it but for some reason I never picked it up. Then slowly the rest of the trilogy came out and still, nothing. I'm actually annoyed at myself, although this wasn't the most amazing book I've ever read I still really enjoyed it and it did not deserve to be sat unread for this long. I'm sorry Mara Dyer, i'm sorry...

I'd pretty much forgotten what this book was about, I knew it featured some type of memory loss which is always a big selling point for me so I was excited. The synopsis of this book is so vague but I think it's best like that. I'd recommend going into this book not really knowing anything about the plot. I loved that we were thrown straight into it. There was no awkward character introductions in the first few chapters as is the case with so many books. They were introduced seamlessly as time went on.

I found myself thinking 'WHAT THE HELL?' a lot in this book. Most of the time I had no friggin idea what was going on. I mean yeah, it is supposed to be like that because it does have mystery elements to it. However, at some points I was getting fed up and just wanted to know what was happening. The main character Mara suffers from PTSD after her friends died in an accident. Because of this she has hallucinations and a lot of the time I couldn't keep up with what was real and what wasn't. It started to get really frustrating but I understand how it's necessary to the plot.

Romance is a big part of this book. The love interest is your typical brooding, flirty, doesn't even have to try boy. I know, this is overdone in YA but I gave it a pass since this was released in 2011. Also, I couldn't help but swoon. He was so lovely to Mara and just wanted to help her through everything. I really shipped them together and loved the whole 'will they, wont they' stage in their relationship. It's not often I enjoy the romance in books and while this was classically young adult and cheesy, I just loved them!

About 3/4 of my way into this book something happened that just threw me off completely. It wasn't a plot twist exactly, more like a random happening where I once again had no clue what was happening. For about 3 chapters I had no clue what was going on, I even went back and checked to make sure I hadn't missed a chapter or something. It felt like the author had just thrown it in at random and the pacing was completely off. After those few chapters the book when back to normal and I was left rubbing my head in confusion...

Overall I really enjoyed reading the unbecoming of Mara Dyer. I'm going to continue on with the trilogy because I think the books could get better. This one kind of felt like it was building up to something that never really came so I'm hoping book two will answer some of my questions. It was fast paced, fun and confusing (in a good way, and a bad way sometimes). 

Have you read the Mara Dyer trilogy? What did you think? Do the books improve or get worse? Let me know in the comments!

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