Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

Title: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara #1)
Author: Michelle Hodkin
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 452
Challenge: None
Source: Own
But the book: BN / Amazon


My Rating:

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. -Summary from goodreads.com

"What the HELL just happened?"
Those were my exact 5 words after having finished The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. I've read many reviews for Mara and you either LOVE IT or you HATE IT. There's no in-between.... Personally, I freaking LOVED it! This book BLEW me away! And I hate it that I can't really get into the story without giving to much away... After reading the first couple of chapters, I thought this was going to be a story about demon possession (or around those lines). Could not have been more wrong! This story is more of a compelling, mystery-thriller, because you don't know what's real and what isn't. There are so many twists and surprises... Such a crazy ride.

Of course, you have your typical YA cliche aspects;
-typical mean girl (evil blond girl, who does the impossible to patronize Mara)
-cocky male lead (Noah; British, gorgeous and he knows it. Doesn’t let anyone “in”, until he meets Mara)
-cliffhanger ending (in this story its more like Ms. Hodkin throws us off the cliff rather than keep us hanging… Yeah, that bad)

But you know what, if anything, the whole cliche feeling actually worked in favor of the story. Ms. Hodkin worked her magic to make this novel super addicting; I could not put it down! The only sucky thing about this book is the ending. The author clearly ties up some loose ends, but only to untie others. The end seemed rushed and just a big mess. Plus, this book has the WORST cliffhanger in the history of cliffhangers! I kid you not when I say that after I finished the last page, I seriously thought my book was defective. I even went out to my local B&N to check other MARA books to make sure. Alas, my book was in perfect condition (booo!) and I now how to wait a whole flippin' year for book 2 to come out.... O_o Lord, help me!