The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

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.

Rating: 5 stars

The story starts off with a girl named Mara Dyer, and she just moved to Florida on account of her having PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after being the only survivor in a building collapse. Her boyfriend, her best friend, and her boyfriend's sister died. But when she moves to Florida, strange things start happening. She begins to have hallucinations and flashbacks, all of her dead boyfriend, Jude, and her boyfriend's sister, Claire.

Mara starts getting upset easily, and when she wishes death on an abusing owner of a small dog, it happens. Just as she imagined it. Can this be a coincidence? She hopes so, but her hopes drop when the same thing happens to her Spanish teacher. There's something seriously wrong with Mara Dyer, and a certain boy with a 'panty-dropping' smile who has taken a sudden interest in her isn't helping.

I am having a hard time trying to find out what about this book I don't like. It's very difficult, because the book was just that freaking awesome. It was quite distressing, actually. I was hoping to hate it, I had read so many awful reviews on it. And yet, the world of books has never ceased to surprise me.

Let's begin this review with Noah Shaw, because this genuinely confused me. Everyone says he was such a jack-ass...but he actually was quite nice to Mara. When he found out about her drawings he could've been a complete douche bag and humiliated in front of everyone, just like they all wanted him too. It would've helped his reputation incredibly. But no, he stands up for her, in front of the entire school, gives quite the suggestion that they were doing something more than dating, then takes the notebook back, humiliates the other girl, and asks if Mara is okay. If that is people's idea of cruel and being jack-ass-y (?) , then I'm out. I'll take my opinions elsewhere.

Although seriously, if you want to read a story about a douchebag, then read Obsidian by Jennifer Armentrout. DAEMON was a douchebag, not Noah. Sure Noah may have teased her a bit, but he never said anything deliberately cruel or hurtful to her. That just bugged me so much, because that was the MAIN problem people had with this book, and I just didn't get it.

Enough on that, or I'll be ranting on forever. The plot was fantastic, and (maybe spoiler??) I love how at the end they still don't know what they are. It keeps you interested in the story, and it leaves room for a really fantastic sequel. At the end of the book, there is nothing definite in Mara's life, and that might frustrate some of you, but I love that about it. It shows her inner turmoil over Noah, her 'power', her social life, and her sanity. I was never sure of whether she actually had a power, whether someone else was just messing with her, or whether she was just insane. And (SPOILER) when I found out Noah had a power too I was just all like

What just happened?

And I loved Mara and Noah's relationship. It was cute and fun and dark and serious all at once, but despite all this you could see how much Noah cared for Mara. He wanted to help her so much, despite all the times she pushed him away.

There is a beautiful amount of potential for this series, and I hope Hodkin doesn't mess that up. But based on the way it's going so far, I doubt that she will.

Great book, all in all, although I do wish a few things were explained more clearly (things I can't tell you or they'd be spoilers) And I'd recommend this to anyone who likes mystery, drama, romance, and a bit of humor.

xxAvalon