Book Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

Title: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
Author: Michelle Hodkin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Genre: Young Adult (???)
Why I read it/how I found it: Michelle Hodkin is coming to my local library.

Description: Mara Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger than walking 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.

Review: Usually when a book I read is young adult, I put the genre it is in parenthesis. As you can tell, for this book I didn't. I only put question marks. Because really, anything else would be almost insulting; it's one of those fabulous books that you can't just put in one category. It's so creepy, so would it go under horror? Because of Mara's PTSD that makes her hallucinate would it be a psychological book? Or is there something beyond, that means Mara isn't crazy and it's paranormal? And of course there's the romance of the novel to tie in as well. This book has everything. Sometimes a scene would be so funny or similar to something in a contemporary novel that I'd forget about the underlying question of what really happened that night Mara's friends were killed, and what does she have to do with it. And then the next page I'd be getting that wonderful sensation of getting creeped out. I loved trying to go through Mara's mind and seeing what she sees, wondering if she's crazy or if there's something more to her. It's something that I really want to go back and read more in-depth and maybe get a little English major on it and analyze. The rest of the characters were a breath of fresh air. They weren't typical stereotypes. Her entire family was unique and I could see them all as a person, not a name on print. And Noah. Oh, Noah, how could I not talk about you? Admittedly, when first introduced I thought, "Great. Another one of those bad boys that only our heroine can make fall in love with her and forsake his heartbreak ways." But Noah has so much more to him than that. He's not a perfect person, he's done bad things in the past, but he has reason to care for Mara. It's a wonderful romance.
And oh my heck, I need to get to the next book (which isn't out yet). The ending is killer!

Other information: There is at least one more book, I don't know if there'll be more, and I couldn't find any information on that. You can find Michelle Hodkin's website here.