That’s Some Spooky Sh*t ~ The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

OVERALL FEELING

Creepy and haunting and eery, this book was all I needed for Halloween this year.

Mara Dyer believes life can’t 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 strangely unharmed.
There is.

She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love.

She’s wrong.

BOOK INFO:

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Format & Pages: Paperback, 452

Published: October 23rd 2012 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Add to Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

COVER REVIEW: It captures the essence of the story with the watery distortion.

Our main character is the creepy Mara Dyer. Ever since her friends died in a freak accident, she’s been recovering from PSTD and having difficulty with school. Now she’s starting to get freaky hallucinations of her dead friends, shattering glass, and darting shadows. She doesn’t know if she’s going crazy, or if what’s going on around her is the real world.

Mara was half-Indian, I believe, which was interesting. It added a bit of flavor to the story, a bit of cultural context. Her character was very difficult to get to know in this novel because she was hallucinating and dreaming so often. For instance, I still don’t know what on earth she likes to do in her free time. Does she read? Write? Draw? Create? Sing? Don’t ask me, ’cause I don’t have a clue. The entire story centered on her PTSD and weird powers that ‘evolved’ from it, which was super creepy and awesome. However, I would’ve liked to have known her better.

Our love interest is the sexy Noah, who has an English accent and a sad background. I’ve been trolling around Goodreads, and I’ve noticed that a lot of people think he’s a real stereotype, and kind of hate him. Well, I hate to be breaking the flow, but I thought he was really cute. His background was relatable (believe me, I’ve known so many people like him), and he had a very special connection with Mara that I liked. I’ll admit, it was annoying that as soon as Mara arrived at school that he forgot EVERYONE else and spent all his time flirting with her. But it was adorable, and his loyalty & caring was heartbreaking.

There were a couple of minor-ish characters, like Daniel & Joseph (Mara’s brothers), the typical hot b**ch at school and her jock boyfriend, and Jamie (Mara’s newfound friend). I adored Jamie, because he was so sassy and down-to-earth, without becoming a stereotype. But the rest of them were fairly forgettable.

To be honest, the real beauty of this book lies in the plot. I didn’t connect HUGELY with any one of the characters, but Noah was hot and Mara was *meh, tolerable*.

OK, let’s get down to the best part of this review. I frigging loved the plot of this book. It was so creepy and intense and amazing.

I put this book in my ‘this-will-mess-with-you’ bookshelf on Goodreads. I bet you can guess why. The reader gets put in Mara’s mind, and that is one freaky place to be.

AHEM! For example, she comes home early from a party because she had too much social anxiety. When she opens the door to her house, all of the doors and cabinets and windows have been switched around. She totters up the stairs, turns on the water in the bathtub, and starts getting ready to bathe. But she accidentally drops her mother’s earrings into the tub water, and reaches in to get them. Two hours later, her mother finds her with her arm in the scaldingly hot water, unconscious, with the earrings in her ears.

I mean, that sh*t was SCARY! And then she finds out that she has an even weirder power that can actually do a lot of damage, and she figures stuff out with Noah, and then there’s a frigging gigantic cliffhanger. Which makes you need to read the next book, even though you’re kind of too scared to.

Anyways, it was kickass, and definitely the highlight of the book.

φ Freaky writing

φ Amazing plot

φ It’s a series

BUT THEN THERE ARE…

φ Bland characters

φ Stereotypes

φ AND THE HUGEST CLIFFHANGER EVER OMFG *must breathe*

This was definitely one of the creepiest books I’ve read this year, and I would highly recommend it to everyone and anyone. Did I mention that the plot will blow your mind?!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆