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Showing posts with label Michelle Hodkin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michelle Hodkin. Show all posts

Tuesday, 26 February 2013

A Review for The Evolution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer #2) by Michelle Hodkins

The Evolution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #2)Posted by Donna
Release Date: February 28th 2013
Finished Date: February 22nd, 2013
Publishers: Simon & Schuster UK
Source: For Review
Format: Paperback
Pages:  554
Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US / The Book Depo

Mara Dyer knows she isn't crazy. 
She knows that she can kill with her mind, and that Noah can heal with his. Mara also knows that somehow, Jude is not a hallucination. He is alive. Unfortunately, convincing her family and doctors that she's not unstable and doesn't need to be hospitalised isn't easy. The only person who actually believes her is Noah. But being with Noah is dangerous and Mara is in constant fear that she might hurt him. She needs to learn how to control her power, and fast! Together, Mara and Noah must try and figure out exactly how Jude survived when the asylum collapsed, and how he knows so much about her strange ability...before anyone else ends up dead!


The Review: 2.5 Stars!

This is one of them times where I wish I’d let Jess review this book. She loved The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer and me, while I liked it, I just didn't believe it lived up to all the hype. But something intrigued me to want to read more and so I picked up the sequel, The Evolution of Mara Dyer and honestly, picking it up was probably a big mistake. 

I read both The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer & The Evolution of Mara Dyer back to back within the last four days. That's nearly 1000 pages of Mara's story and I can honestly say, after nearly 1000 pages, I have no idea what is going on. I was hoping the sequel would bring a lot of my answers to my questions, but while some were, it was like for every one question that was answered, a hundred more came and honestly, my head hurts! My mind can't figure out what's going on and I bet your wondering how I don’t know what’s going on but Mara’s story is so confusing because of her mental health issues. As a reader you don’t actually know if what she is seeing is real. The story seems to jump around a lot because of the things she sees and it really does make it hard to understand. Some might say that's a good thing but for me, it's highly frustrating.

Other problems I had with this book were, I didn't like the flashbacks. They were boring. The story is so long - over 500 pages and I felt most of could have been cut down. The flashbacks to India, the doll, the dead animals, Jude....it's a never end of confusion....most of this story just didn't make sense and I'm starting to think if Mara is just really crazy. The story plays on your mind and while some have said that's the beauty of it, how can it be enjoyable? When I read, I like to understand a story but with Mara's story...I just don't get it. The ending of book two does give some relief; we finally learn what Mara is....kind of. I’m assuming more answers will lie within the third and final book but I honestly doubt I’ll read it. I’m just not invested enough in this series or characters to carry on.

All in all, while I don’t connect to this series, I still believe many people will. It’s definitely a series that you need to try for yourself, so please do still go and read it. You might find that you love it and hopfully soon, Jess will have a more glowing review than me. 

Monday, 25 February 2013

A Review for The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer #1) by Michelle Hodkin

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #1)Posted by Donna
Release Date: September 11th, 2011
Finished Date: Febraury 20th, 2013
Publishers: Simon & Schuster UK
Source: Gifted from Haley @ ya-aholic 
Format: Hardcover
Pages:  452
Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US / The Book Depo

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 Revew: “You're the girl who called me an asshole the first time we spoke. The girl who tried to pay for lunch even after you learned I have more money than God. You're the girl who risked her ass to save a dying dog, who makes my chest ache whether you're wearing green silk or ripped jeans. You're the girl that I--" Noah stopped, then took a step closer to me. "You are my girl.” 

I had wanted to read The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer for a while and I've had it sitting on my shelf since it was first released in 2011. That's not that long it is? Lol. Finally, I'm getting around to reading it and I have to say, I have so many mixed feelings about it.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is a story that for me, doesn't live up to the hype. Sorry fans! But something about this story just doesn't work for me....and I'm not quite sure what it is yet. Now don't get me wrong, I did like the story but I couldn't enjoy it as much as I would have liked. One of my main problems what I didn't like how you didn't really know what genre the book is it. It's almost like a contemporary romance book with a hint of paranormal. I was reading the book thinking...okay...so where's the kick to this story? I waited and waited and then it comes by the last few chapters. And for a book that's 450 odd pages, thats a long time to wait.

The romance was also another aspect that kind of annoyed me. I did like that it wasn't an instalove between Noah and Mara, however I didn't like how deep these two characters got in with each other so fast. In the eyes of Noah, Mara couldn't do anything wrong. At times I did find their relationship sweet but mostly, it just annoyed me. I liked Noah, I thought he has some laugh out loud moments and I liked Mara but I just didn't connect with their relationship as much as they did.

“You want me as much as I want you. And all I want is you."
My tongue warred with my mind. "Today," I whispered.
Noah stood slowly, his body skimming mine as he rose. "Today. Tonight. Tomorrow. Forever.”


I have to admit, I'm honestly not sure why I kept reading this book. Usually I'm the type to give up pretty quickly but even though I had some problems with it, I guess you could say I was kind of enjoying it. I was intruiged to find out what actually happened to Mara and how her friends actually died. It takes a long time to figure this out and you don't know the whole of Mara's story still and at times it's frustrating because the story is kind of mind boggling. The story is just so hard to predict, that it left me wanting to find out what happened and I for this reason I'm going to start the second book The Evolution of Mara Dyer and hopefully with that book I'll enjoy it all the more.

Tuesday, 27 December 2011

A review for The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara dyer #1) by Michelle Hodkin

Posted by Jess
Published Date: September 27th, 2011
Finished Date: December 27th, 2011
Source: For Review from Simon and Schuster
Format: Paperback
Pages: 452



The blurb from Goodreads: 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 Review: Noah stood slowly, his body skimming mine as he rose. "Today. Tonight. Tomorrow. Forever." Noah's eyes held mine. His stare was infinite. "I was made for you, Mara."

Whoa! This book was too amazing. I've wanted to read this book for so long. I'd only heard good things and it didn't disappoint. It pretty much lived up to the hype I had. 

I'm not going to talk about the book, becuase this is a book best to be read when you know nothing about it. Let me just say that it was full of suspense, love, humor, and mystery. It had me on edge the whole time, and other than over the Christmas weekend, I really just couldn't put this book down one bit! It' s adarkly twisted read that will leave you wanting more after each chapter.

Our protagonist Mara is a wonderful heroine, she's very strong and deals with all her issues in her stride, makes her own choices, sometimes the wrong ones, sometimes the right ones. Noah, ah Noah. A lot of reviewers have called him a jerk, or called him a stalker...he isn't any of those things. He's completely swoon worthy and wonderful in his own right, his and Mara's relationship is intriguing and quite fragile, both of them bounce off of one another but contest each others choices and coincidentally won't leave each others side. I can't say much more about them together as it'll spoil the book. Like I said at the beginning, this book is best read when you know nothing of it.

Well there isn't a lot more I can say. The ending to this book was incredible. Such a cliffhanger that will leave you gasping and wanting the next book straight away! The next book will reveal so much, and possibly put Mara and Noah's already fragile relationship to the test. I am anxiously awaiting the next book in the series. I can't wait to see what happens!! Read it everyone, it's immense.



 
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