Book Review – The Evolution of Mara Dyer

From Goodreads:

Mara Dyer once believed she could run from her past.
She can’t.

She used to think her problems were all in her head.
They aren’t.

She couldn’t imagine that after everything she’s been through, the boy she loves would still be keeping secrets.
She’s wrong.

After falling in love with the first in the series, ‘The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer’ I could not wait to jump into this novel. Michelle Hodkin has such a melodic turn of phrase, interwoven with sharp satire. Half the time I’m marveling at her writing, and the other half at the story.

I expected this sequel to surpass the debut novel, however, the first ten chapters dragged a little for me, until the pace began to quicken to stop me from frequent lapses in reading. This really surprised me – I found it a little longwinded in sections and was constantly finding my attention turn to the laundry, or washing the dishes. After the halfway mark though, I completed it in a day. I’m putting my distraction down to Mara’s drawn out experiences in the psychiatric facility, (don’t worry this is not a spoiler) there was too much internal monologue and not enough action.

There is still the mystery that continues throughout – some parts are solved, some aren’t. And I am still eager to read the third installment. The retribution of Mara Dyer.’

I could not predict the course of Mara’s journey, Michelle manages to keep enough out of sight that you don’t know what the hell is going on until it is upon you.

For me, Mara felt a bit too whiny in this edition, and Noah, a little too polished at times – I loved that quote about him being beautifully broken, and wanted my adorably damaged Noah back.

Where some of the characters from the first novel took a back seat and a plethora of new characters were introduced, I didn’t connect as easily with the new cast.

I also felt the protagonist was given too much power – and that’s all I’m going to say to avoid spoiler territory. Who knows, maybe things will be uncovered it the following novel to lend credible explanation.

Overall, this novel was still an enchanting read, filled with dark mystery. Departing from the realism present in ‘The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer’ added to the frustration with many questions by the end of the book…

   

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