Review: The Unbecoming of Maya Dryer by Michelle Hoodkin

Mara Dyer doesn’t know if she is crazy or haunted—all she knows is that everyone around her is dying in this suspenseful and “strong, inventive tale” (Kirkus Reviews).
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.After Mara survives the traumatizing accident at the old asylum, it makes sense that she has issues. She lost her best friend, her boyfriend, and her boyfriend’s sister, and as if that weren’t enough to cope with, her family moves to a new state in order to give her a fresh start. But that fresh start is quickly filled with hallucinations—or are they premonitions?—and then corpses, and the boundary between reality and nightmare is wavering. At school, there’s Noah, a devastatingly handsome charmer who seems determined to help Mara piece together what’s real, what’s imagined—and what’s very, very dangerous.This fast-paced psychological—or is it paranormal?—thriller will leave you breathless for its sequel, The Evolution of Mara Dyer. 

Wow. Not only did I enjoy this book I could not put it down. Even with all the questions I have I found the book to be enjoyable. Mara is a young teenage girl who doesn't remember a night when her friends died. Because if this she moves and starts her life over in the middle of a school year. While there she learns who not to hang without and befriends a guy named Jamie. She also catches the eye of Noah. Noah is more than he seems and as time progresses we learn more about Noah. The relationship that Mara and Noah is your normal teenage relationship they both like each other but the other one doesn't want to admit it. We watched as Mara starts to think herself to be crazy as she sees things, thinks things, and stuff happens. It isn't normal and we realize that Noah seems to know a bit about what Mara is dealing with. I have questions that I would like answers to and maybe book two will have them. Will Mara find out what she is. As this seems like a paranormal setting. Does her parents know ? So many unspoken things happening that I had to drop the rating to a four.

Michelle Hodkin grew up in Florida, went to college in New York, and studied law in Michigan. When she isn't writing, she can usually be found prying strange objects from the jaws of one of her three pets. THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER is her first novel. You can visit her online at michellehodkin.com