The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer: Review

Synopsis:

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.

***

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is probably one of those books that I definitely don't hate to read, but don't dwell on it either. It's an entertaining read and a good pastime, excitement and suspense are included of course (I mean, what is a YA novel without excitement?). But let's just say I'm not obsessed with this story or whatever.

Mara is an interesting character actually. On one hand she's really a good girl who wants to do righteous things when seeing some inequality around her and just want to be normal. On the other hand she's infuriating and always dwells on her guilt for far too long. She's okay for a leading role, but I won't say she's a good heroine in the story. She's too soft.

Noah is also interesting. But somehow I feel detached from his character. His infuriatingly healthy ego reminds me of Daemon a lot, only Daemon is more arrogant. I'm down with that because I've read some infuriating and arrogant male characters before and I guess I've gotten used to that. The sweet and caring part of him is good, only it's too different from his image on the outside that I have a fairly hard time picturing they are the very same person. So while I like him, I always feel like I'm liking two different people than one single character.

The background of the story is actually quite cool. Mara is like Juliette from Shatter Me in terms of their abilities. Only this is more like a mind thing than a physical thing. That's okay. Not the most jaw-hanging background of the story (come on, nothing is more jaw-hanging than Gone :D) The plot is smooth too, except for a few chapters towards the end of the book. It's only a minor flaw. 

I'm vastly amused by this book. Okay, typically my reactions while reading the book are either feeling heart-broken or irritated or surprised or things like that. This book is not as surprising as I thought but it's amusing, especially for the first twenty chapters because the conversation between Noah and Mara is hilarious. But the bad thing is, this humor kind of dies out when it comes to the last fifteen chapters of the book and that's another flaw.

Overall it's enjoying to read this book and refreshing. But to be honest, I won't strongly recommend this book and I don't think I will read it for a second time.

Rating: 7.5/10