Mara Dyer's life has been filled with trauma and terror, but nothing tops the fact that people don't believe her. In Michelle Hodkin's The Evolution of Mara Dyer, Mara's life continues on the downward spiral, but at least one thing has change: someone believes her.
Where does a girl go after being present for yet another horrific murder? She gets committed, that's where. Mara has been put in an institution "for her own well being", but the truth is people are scared of what happens around her and what she insists is happening. When her father was shot and people around her died, it became clear the death of her ex-boyfriend and two friends last year was not an isolated incident. But no one believes Mara that her psycho, almost-rapist, dead ex-boyfriend is the one stalking her. But then again, no one believes she can move things with her mind or that Noah, her new friend, can heal himself.
When Mara is finally sent home, she is still required to go for outpatient treatments at a psychiatric facility. There she is surrounded by "more crazy teens", but over and over, Jude makes attempts to scare her. He slips photos of her sleeping into her bag, he leaves her a dead cat on the porch, and she begins to see him around, especially when he tries to run her and her father off the road. But everyone already assumes Mara is teetering on the border of crazy town, so no one is going to believe Jude, who is supposed to be dead, is really alive and stalking her. Even Mara begins to wonder if she is really just crazy. Luckily, she has Noah, the one unwavering person who believes in Mara more, sometimes, than even she does herself. But what is happening to them all? Why can she move things? How does Noah heal himself? And how did Jude rise from a building collapse that should have killed him?
At the end of the first Mara Dyer book, I found myself confused and I had no idea what was supposed to be the cause of the strange happenings, but I actually didn't care about my confusion because the book was so good! Usually there is a big reveal at the end of these books where you find out the supernaturalness was vampires, fallen angels, werewolves, shapeshifters, etc. At the end of Mara Dyer #1? Not a clue. I knew there was something supernatural involved, but there were no answers! So I assumed there would be some answers in this book... but there aren't. And you know what? It didn't bother me (again)! The book was so good and so enthralling, I didn't mind waiting for another 500 pg book to finally get the answers I was looking for to questions such as: Why can they heal/move things? Why are they connected? What is happening?? This ambiguity usually drives me nuts in other books, but I actually loved it in this series!
So the big reveal must be the purpose of the whole series- and if Hodkin leaves me hanging at the end of the last book, that is when you are going to see me angry! But since the books are so well-written and still exciting, I am willing to hang on until then to find out the big secrets! I don't think this series would be good for kids who can't hang on through a long, ambiguous series to get answers. I think there are better stories for those kinds of kids, but if you have a strong reader who can hang in there, this is a great series! And I can NOT wait to find out what on earth is going ON!
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