The unbecoming of mara dyer by Michelle Hodkin November 30 2012

The unbecoming of mara dyer

by Michelle Hodkin

This book is about a sixteen year old girl named Mara Dyer, the story begins when she wakes up in the hospital and has no recollection on the reason why. Mara soon finds out that her best friend, her boyfriend and his sister all died when the building they were in collapsed, Mara was the only one to survive. Mara and her family soon realized that she is struggling to continue without her best friend so they decide to move their family of five from Rhode island to Florida. Mara hopes things will get better but instead they take a turn for the worse. Mara begins to dread looking in mirrors because every time she finds people looking back at her she knows to be dead. While Mara feels as if she is going insane she attends her first few weeks of a private school, making a horrible first impression and immediately making enemies is not helping her recovery from the accident. While at school one boy in particular catches her eye, although she is told that he will bring her nothing but trouble. Noah Shaw immediately becomes a part of Mara's life and while she is resistant she begins a long descent falling for him. Aside from Mara's strange hallucinations she realizes that she has a horrible and devastating power, she can cause peoples death just by picturing them dying in her mind. So while Mara tries to deal with new found enemies, horrible powers, hallucinations and a boy she has been warned about she thinks her life cant get anymore bizarre. She is very wrong!

I enjoyed this book, I found that it was a topic I had never come across in the past. The characters in this book were easy to make assumptions about but upon reading further into the book I found that each of them had a long back story. I also found all of the protagonist characters very easy to like, it was very easy to distinguish the protagonists from the antagonists. I found that throughout the book it felt as thought the author did a poor job of making feelings heard, I felt that the majority of the book was actions and a lot of running around as opposed to reactions and reflections, but this could simply be a matter of opinion.  

I  would recommend this book for others to read, I think readers who enjoy realistic fiction would enjoy this book. Michelle Hodkin did a very good job of putting a lot of twists and turns and a surprising ending into this book. I don't think anyone will see the ending coming. If you enjoy reading books that are more action and don't dwell on feelings than I would recommend this book. 

Anika Semchuk