The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer Trilogy, #1)

by Michelle Hodkin

[jeannamichel]

Mara Dyer has been through an accident that changes her life forever. The only problem. She has trouble remembering what actually happened in said accident. She insists on moving, getting away from her old life, where her now-dead friends haunt her every move. It is all because she is crazy, at least that is what she is led to believe from what her mother and other therapists say of her condition. She tries to keep her crazy in check, but it is difficult when people around her start dying and she may have been to blame. She needs to figure this out soon before someone she loves gets hurt. Or worse. Mara Dyer needs to remember.

I cannot even put into words how fantastic this book is. It is just one of those books that are indescribable to put into words; no matter what I say, it will not be enough to show you that this book is a masterpiece.


Let’s talk about the cover first. I usually leave the cover out of reviews because my rating is pretty self-explanatory, either you like a cover or you don’t. It is a matter of opinion. However, Mara Dyer didn’t first come to me in the form of a book. I hadn’t heard of the novel until a few months ago. It came to me in form of pictures. They didn’t have a title but I thought they were lovely and I even had them as my wallpaper for months before discovering that these pictures were a fantastic marketing campaign for a book called, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. I loved these photos and I didn’t even care what the novel was about, I was reading this book no matter what.

This book seemed real. The characters created a sense of realness that could only come with fantastic writing and a wonderful storyline. Mara Dyer. The first time I thought about her name was when I cracked open the spine. Mara Dyer is not a common name and told on the first page, is not her true name either. The name Dyer got me thinking of a school project I had completed last year about serial killers. Amelia Dyer was a famous killer who murdered babies and threw them in her local river. Was this a coincidence? After reading, I am still not sure, but it made Mara even more real to me. She had issues that teens face every day. Dyer was fantastically drawn into a world that captured its reader with its plot and will not the reader go because of the perfectly-done characters.

Mara Dyer captured my attention from the very first page. I was whisked away from my own bedroom into Rachel’s, while these characters played with an Ouija board. Hodkin’s writing took me on Dyer’s journey with her fantastic descriptions and plot twists. My original prediction of the plot was squashed time and time again when there were a series of twists that left me wondering how it was all going to happen. I felt like I was inside an episode of CSI one minute and then thrown into an episode of Supernatural. It was channel surfing at its best. The plot was not something I have ever encountered before. It was fresh, unique, and so original that I was enchanted from the very first word. Hodkin’s detail to every small thing made me aware how much I wanted to know. How much I needed to remember with Dyer. I was on the best rollercoaster in the theme park.

When this rollercoaster ended and it was almost time to get off, I felt like I was slapped in the face. The ending is unbelievable in a fantastic sense that I never even saw it coming. For those readers, who like to read the last sentence of a book before you start reading, don’t do that with this one because those last words are the best part.