The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
Michelle Hodkin
450 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Source: as one put it, it is the "traveling ARC of the NBC sisterhood" or rather, I got it from a fellow Nestie
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

I've seen a lot of hype for this novel so I was excited to read it, thinking it would be amazing.  It was good, but didn't quite live up the hype in my head.  Anyway, the story is about Mara (a name she makes up for herself when telling the story) who has lost three friends in a tragic accident that she survived.  Her family moves to Florida to get a fresh start where she starts experiencing strange things and meets Noah, who unbeknownst to her is also experiencing strange things.  I don't want to ruin it for you by giving too much away.

I loved the characters, particularly Mara, who, despite her penchant for fainting all over the place, acted, reacted, and spoke like a real teenager.  Her boyfriend, Noah, was pretty swoon-worthy and the two had definite chemistry.  Characters and settings get an A+ but the plot gets an A-.  It was interesting and unique but it felt a bit overdone to me in parts, especially once I learned what the real deal with Noah is.

I don't get why the character of Jamie fell off the face off the planet, er pages, halfway through the novel.    I know what happened in the plot to cause that to happen, but I don't get why that had to happen.

My usual complaint: as page numbers grew and I got closer and closer to end, I saw a cliffhanger forming out of the sheer fact that I didn't think the plot would resolve itself in a mere fifty pages.  I was right, and there was the cliffhanger staring at me in the last sentence.  Why must every book end in a cliffhanger and become a trilogy?

Despite that, it was a really good book that was quite a page turner that I highly recommend you put on your fall reading list.

Mara comes out in September.  You're going to want to read it.  I've never read anything like it before and now I'm hooked, despite the fact that nowhere on the Internet is telling me about plans for a second book.