Playing Catch Up! The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Playing Catch Up has really been helping me through my ever growing TBR list. I'd like to welcome all other blogs to participate too! If you do, be sure to post your links in the comments section. I'd love to see your Playing Catch Up Reviews, and I'm sure others would too!! *wink*

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The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer #1) by Michelle Hodkin 
Genre: Young Adult (Paranormal Romance)
Date Published: September 27, 2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Mara Dyer believes life can't 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 strangely unharmed. 

There is.

She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love. 

She's wrong.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is the first book in the Mara Dyer Trilogy by Michelle Hodkin. I've been wanting to read this book for so long, and I can't believe I waited as long as I did. It's not what I was expecting, although I don't really know what I was expecting since the blurb gives you just enough to lure you in. Once I started, I couldn't stop though. Mara was such a fun and spunky character. I just loved her right away. Noah had to grow on me a bit, but he did.. in a big way. I liked how they teased, and taunted, and "hated" each other. I think Mara has more control than she thinks she does, and I don't think everything is her fault like she thinks they are. Unfortunately, I can't say what I do think about all that, because that'd be a spoiler. The story throws little teasers at you all throughout the book that give you hints to think about of whats to come as you read, and I think that's a big part of what makes it so hard to put down. I wanted to get to those parts. I couldn't sleep until I knew what was going to happen. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to finish this book, and I can't wait to get started on the next one.

WHEN I AWOKE, I FACED A WALL OF books. My eyes felt puffy and swollen with sleep and I rubbed them with my fists like a little girl. Lamplight from an alcove stretched across the room, reaching for my exposed legs at the foot of the bed.

Noah’s bed.

In Noah’s room.

Without any clothes on.

Holy shit.

I wrapped the flat sheet tighter around my chest. Lightning flashed, illuminating the roiling surface of the bay outside the window.

“Noah?” I asked, my voice shaky and hoarse with sleep. My last memory was the taste of that rank concoction Mr. Lukumi gave me to drink. The warm feel of it dribbling down my chin. The smell. And then I remembered cold, being cold. But nothing else. Nothing else. My sleep was dreamless.

“You’re up,” Noah said as he padded into view. He was limned in the light from his desk, his drawstring pants hanging low on his hips and his T-shirt hugging his lean frame. The light cast his elegant profile into relief; sharp and gorgeous, as if he’d been cut from glass. He moved to sit on the edge of his bed, about a foot away from my feet.

“What time is it?” I asked him. My voice was thick with sleep.

“About ten.”

I blinked. “It was almost two when the seminar ended, wasn’t it?” Noah nodded. “What happened?”

He shot me a loaded glance. “You don’t remember?”

I shook my head. Noah said nothing and looked away. His expression was even, but I saw the muscles working in his jaw. I grew increasingly uncomfortable. What was so bad he couldn’t—oh. Oh, no. My eyes flicked down to the sheet I’d wrapped around myself. “Did we—”

In an instant, Noah’s face was full of mischief. “No. You tore your clothes off and then ran through the house screaming ‘It burns! Take it off us!’”

My face flushed hot.

“Kidding,” Noah said, grinning wickedly.

He was too far away to smack.

“But you did jump in the pool with your clothes on.”

Fabulous.

“I was just glad you didn’t choose the bay. Not in this storm.”

“What happened to them?” I asked. Noah looked bemused. “My clothes, I mean?”

“They’re in the wash.”

“How did I—” I blushed deeper. Did I take them off in front of him?

Did he take them off?

“Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

I buried my face in my hands. God help me.

A soft chuckle escaped from Noah’s lips. “Fret not, you were actually very modest in your intoxicated state. You undressed in the bathroom, wrapped yourself in a towel, crawled between my sheets, and slept.” Noah shifted on the bed, and the oddest crunching came from underneath him. I looked, really looked, at the bed for the first time.

“What,” I asked slowly, as I eyed the animal crackers strewn all over it, “the hell?”

“You were convinced they were your pets,” Noah said, not even trying to suppress his laughter. “You wouldn’t let me touch them.”

Michelle Hodkin is the author of the Mara Dyer Trilogy, which was a New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestselling series. The trilogy, which includes The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, The Evolution of Mara Dyer, and The Retribution of Mara Dyer, was described as “haunting and dreamlike” by Cassandra Clare and “darkly funny, deliciously creepy, and genuinely thoughtful” by Veronica Roth. Lev Grossman has called Hodkin “One of the greatest talents in Young Adult fiction.” The novels were praised by Romantic Times, MTV’s Hollywood Crush, and the Los Angeles Times, and books from the series appeared on several state reading lists. Additionally, The Retribution of Mara Dyer was selected as one of TIME.com’s Top 10 YA Books of 2014. Hodkin grew up in Florida, went to college in New York, and studied law in Michigan, before finally settling in Brooklyn last year.

To learn more about Michelle Hodkin and her books, visit her website.You can also find her on Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.