Friday, March 25, 2016

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

Author- Michelle Hodkin
Lexile- 600L
Page count- 480 pages paperback
Genre- Horror

Book 1 of 3 in the Mara Dyer Trilogy Series
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Awards-

  •  ALA Best Books for Young Adults Nominee
  •  ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults - Top Ten
  •  ALA/YALSA Readers/ Choice
  •  Blue Spruce YA Book Award Nominee (CO)
  •  The Flume: New Hampshire Teen Reader's Choice Award Nominee


  • This book puts a twist on any other horror books you've read so far;, it puts horror on a whole new level. The main protagonist of the book is a 16 year old girl named Mara Dyer. Mara Dyer finds herself with many questions all throughout the book. The book starts off with her waking up in a hospital room having no idea why she was there, and she finds out that that both of her best friends that she was with, are now dead. Mara is the only person who can figure what happened to them, but the only problem is Mara can’t remember anything from that night. Having them not around was really hard for Mara, so she convinced her parents to move to Florida. Florida is the main setting of the book. Mara quickly realizes that she hates Florida, but then she meets Noah and it changes everything. She starts off hating him, but as the book progresses they end up falling in love. Just as things seem to be going smoothly, Mara's brother gets kidnapped.   Mara and Noah immediately go to save him. But they have to cross over a swamp in order to reach him. Alligators were swimming through the water, Mara being frightened, she wishes that they were all dead. They finally cross the swamp and successfully rescue her brother. They later find out that all the alligators around the swamp were dead. This event really pushes Mara into believing that she can kill people with her mind, and this wasn't the first time something unusual like this has happened. This is the main conflict that Mara faces in the book. Noah confesses that he can sense when someone is in trouble, and that he has the ability heal people. That was how Noah knew that Mara’s brother was in trouble. During all of this Mara’s dad’s client is finally getting his verdict after a long time. Noah and Mara look at the paper and they find out that the girl that was murdered, body was found in the same place that they found Mara’s brother the day he got kidnapped. Noah says that he saw the killer wearing the same black watch Mara father’s client is wearing. Shocked from hearing this, Mara says that if the client pleads not guilty in trial she will kill him.  After The trial the client pleads not guilty, and Mara tries to kill him with her mind, but instead she gets distracted and puts him in a  life long coma. Feeling guilty of this Mara goes to the police station to turn herself in, but when she gets there she sees her dead friend Jude wearing the same watch. Jude himself is known of doing cruel things, so Mara knows that he killed the girl. The book ends with Mara blacking out. The lesson that this book taught me was to never jump to conclusions. Mara assumed that the client killed the girl, and he really didn’t. She also thought that Noah was a jerk in the beginning, but found out that he is very kind-hearted. I loved this book because of the plot twist the author presents to us when Jude was the actual killer because no one saw it coming.  Some parts of the book were predictable, and that would be the one thing I would wish to change in the book. This book is very interesting, it was full of twists and turns, so if you like a horror suspenseful books The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is definitely for you!

    Contributed by: Nicita Anand

    Friday, March 4, 2016

    Stung

    Author- Bethany Wiggins (book series)
    Lexile- 760
    Page count- 304 hardcover
    Genre- Dystopia
    Awards- none yet
    Rating:  5/5 Stars

    This book falls into the Sci-Fi and Dystopian Fiction genre, because of it’s setting and time period. The book is set in a futuristic world, where bees have gone extinct. In this world, scientists make new genetically modified bees, which only causes more problems. Fiona Tarsis wakes up in a world she doesn’t remember, with a tattoo on her hand, ‘the mark of the beast’, except she’s totally ordinary. A fortress divides the beasts from the normal people. Fiona goes through an empowering journey to expose the government and interpret her strange world. She wakes up at her house, feeling younger than she looks. Fiona only remembers up till her 13th birthday. She soon bumps into Bowen, a childhood acquaintance. Bowen and Fiona head towards the wall. All of a sudden, they are restrained by a Rebel group, planning on making Fiona fight her brother, Jonah, a Level Ten beast. Bowen saves Fiona and Jonah and they are taken to the hospital inside the wall. Fiona, all along, was injected with a cure by Dr. Grayson and Lissa, Fiona’s sister. Bowen spreads the good news about the cure. The theme of this book is shown frequently. Protect the ones you love, no matter the cost. Both Bowen and Jonah show this, as they sacrificed and harmed their lives to protect Fiona. Bowen didn’t have to help Fiona and could have lived a safe, happy life. Jonah took care of his sister and covered her with his own body when the glass dome shattered. Both Bowen and Jonah had injuries from protecting Fiona. I liked this book because it contained both an amnesiac storyline and a dystopian one. It was different from most generic Dystopian books because Fiona had no background and was finding herself with the reader. Lovers of Dystopian Fiction and action-packed books are sure to enjoy this book. This book also has a sequel, "Cured!"

    Contributed by: Hannah Abraham