The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (The Mara Dyer Trilogy #1) (Paperback)
Other Books in Series
This is book number 1 in the The Mara Dyer Trilogy series.
Staff Reviews
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin is an extraordinary read, albeit a hard book to categorize. At first glance it appears to be a contemporary fiction novel for young adults, but as you read the story you discover it has so much more to offer. Sections of the book read like a thriller novel and has your gripping the book in anticipation, the next moment you’re swooning and in love much like Mara, and then the paranormal twist just throws all your previous conceptions out the window. And because Hopkins keeps you guessing about the true reasons behind all of the deaths and Mara’s madness, you find that you stumble across an amazing new series. Mara, after waking up from a coma, finds out that three of her friends were killed in a terrible accident that she herself was in. She was the only one to survive the collapsing of a run-down local asylum building, leaving her alive but emotionally damaged with no recollection of the accident. Her family quickly decides the best way for Mara to cope with her post traumatic stress disorder is to move to Miami. However, Mara knows that the only true way to cope with her grief and new life is to find out what really happened at the asylum. Luckily, she meets a mysterious boy who helps keep her sane, so to speak, and find out the truth about herself.
As I have said before, this was a fabulous read. The characters are really well developed for book one in a series. I found Mara to be incredible realistic and easy to relate too. Her interactions with other characters never seemed forced and the dialogue is playful and sophisticated . Mara and Noah have a great love story that was mature for teens, but magical enough to still be first love. Hodkin did a great job making the reader feel all of Mara’s emotion; this is a fantastic debut novel. If you are looking for a book with a great love story, a few thrills, and a little off the beaten path, this would be a great choice.
— JodyDescription
Mara Dyer doesn’t know if she is crazy or haunted—all she knows is that everyone around her is dying in this suspenseful and “strong, inventive tale” (Kirkus Reviews).
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.
After Mara survives the traumatizing accident at the old asylum, it makes sense that she has issues. She lost her best friend, her boyfriend, and her boyfriend’s sister, and as if that weren’t enough to cope with, her family moves to a new state in order to give her a fresh start. But that fresh start is quickly filled with hallucinations—or are they premonitions?—and then corpses, and the boundary between reality and nightmare is wavering. At school, there’s Noah, a devastatingly handsome charmer who seems determined to help Mara piece together what’s real, what’s imagined—and what’s very, very dangerous.
This fast-paced psychological—or is it paranormal?—thriller will leave you breathless for its sequel, The Evolution of Mara Dyer.
About the Author
Michelle Hodkin grew up in Florida, went to college in New York, and studied law in Michigan. She is the author of the Mara Dyer and Noah Shaw trilogies. Visit her online at MichelleHodkin.com.