The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (review)
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Mara Dyer isn't even her real name, but it is the one our heroine uses in this this tale of psychological drama and supernatural suspense. Six weeks have passed since a freak accident left Mara's best friend and boyfriend dead and Mara recovering from a coma, with no memory of the events leading up to the tragedy. To escape the suffocating grief of their small town, Mara's parents decide to pack up the family and move to Florida, but Mara remains haunted: buildings crumble before her eyes only to reappear a blink later, and the faces of her dead friends show up at the most inconvenient of times. Mara's psychologist mother insists that that her hallucinations are part of Mara's post-traumatic stress disorder, but this doesn't quite [End Page 149] explain the latest spate of accidental deaths Mara seems to be connected to or the failure of medication to stop her visions. Mara's relationship with Noah Shaw, the obligatory beautiful boy, eventually sheds some light on the matter, leading to a climactic revelation that may or may not be the entire truth. Hodkin effectively disorients the reader by keeping the line between Mara's reality and the goingson in her head perpetually blurry: we know that Mara is a bit off-kilter but the extent of her departure from reality is always in question, even on the last page. Some of the more compelling plot threads are set aside to pursue the amorous developments between Mara and Noah, but since said developments are oh-so-sexy, few fans of romance will be disappointed by this sacrifice. The conclusion points towards a possible rift between the lovebirds while still questioning Mara's sanity, and readers are left to breathlessly wait for what becomes of Mara Dyer next.
