Book Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Childrens Books (1 Mar 2012)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 085707363X
• ISBN-13: 978-0857073631

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. 

Mara awakes in a hospital to her parent’s concerned faces, and asking what she can remember about the accident. But Mara can remember nothing. Can’t remember going to an abandoned building in the middle of the night with her friends. Can’t remember what happened to Claire or Jude. But worst, can’t remember what happened to Rachel. The only person who is alive to tell the tale of what happened that night is Mara. And her mind won’t release the memory.

When Mara starts having blackouts and out of control PTSD, her parents talk about institutionalisation…the last thing Mara wants. And so she convinces them that a change of scenery would do her the world of good. She says goodbye to the home she has known all her life to relocate to Florida.

Mara doesn’t get off to a smooth start at her new school. Somehow without even meaning to, she put herself on the radar of the queen bee…and Noah Shaw. The most beautiful boy Mara has ever seen.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer was written in dreamy prose. It is one of those rare books that it feels like your best friend is sat beside you, telling you all about this thing that happened to her. You weren’t reading a book. You were being told a story. Mara’s voice was realistic and sympathetic and I couldn’t get it out of my head for a long time after finishing it.

The story was very original, the romance…swoooon…It has been a long time since I read a romance so realistic and believable. And while it was a very fall-hard-and-fall-fast type romance, it was one that didn’t feel at all fake or rushed. It felt like diving off the high board. Free and exhilarating.

The support and concern Mara receives from her family was extremely well written. The overbearing mother, only worried about her daughter, the absent and overworked father, the overprotective big brother. All the parts of her family came together and while it might have been dysfunctional, you couldn’t deny how much they cared about her.

I loved this book. I felt like I was falling in love and going insane all at the same time. It was…beautiful.