Well, let me get this out of the way - The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer has nothing whatsoever in common with The Adoration of Jenna Fox, even though their publisher-provided plot descriptions are almost identical. What it is similar to is the infamous bestseller Hush, Hush, but it is just a tad less offensive. So, if you are a fan of that novel, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is your next natural reading choice.

I'll attempt to refrain from excessive ranting here, but, goodness, this novel is just as bad (or as good, depending on how you look at it) as Hush, Hush.

First, there is this wonky, messy and too often nonsensical paranormal story line that is, naturally, all but abandoned to concentrate on romance later in the book. Mara wakes up from a coma to find out that her 3 friends have died in an accident which she miraculously survived. She doesn't remember the circumstances of it, but something strange starts happening to her. She seems to be seeing ghosts everywhere, people around her are dying, she keeps losing chunks of time. Things are so bad with Mara, that her parents consider sending her to an asylum for psychiatric treatment. But eventually they all settle on helping her deal with the trauma by moving to Florida. Here during her first disastrous day in a new private school Mara meets, you guessed it, a scorching hot bad boy named Noah Shaw.

Of course, he's been around the block and allegedly dated every girl in the school. Of course, he is loaded. Of course, Mara is the first girl he ever cared about, cared enough to announce her his girlfriend and, oh my, drive her to school! Where have I seen this before?

What follows is exactly what you'd expect, a "romance" that is pretty much an exercise in sexual innuendo, douchebaggery and you-are-mine/i-belong-to-you mumbo-jumbo. I got sick of the constant alluding to "nailing" or "knowing what I put in my mouth before swallowing" very quickly. To be fair, unlike Nora, Mara does not just quietly take suggestive and offensive remarks thrown at her, she can return them as well - the "swallowing" line is hers. Plus, Noah doesn't try to kill her.

I suppose some female readers will find this sort of dating attractive, amusing, hot even, but for the life of me I can't work up any love for the male lead who is described by Mara's new best friend as a guy who uses and discards his girlfriends "like condoms" (allegedly).

What else is there to expect? In a Becca Fitzpatrick-like fashion, Michelle Hodkin fills her book with nonsensical things like a teacher (in a posh private school!) throwing stuff and insults at her students, or fortuitous situations where our lovebirds find themselves in various beds with no adults around (of course, there are super-duper paranormal reasons why the two can't go all the way), or one-dimensional characters - Mara's blonde mean girl arch-nemesis who turned a complete slut after dating our hero and an obligatory best new black Jewish bi friend (much better and more inventive than that obligatory best gay friend, right?)

Pardon me while I go roll my eyes at this mess some more.

P.S. I dare you to explain what exactly happened in this book.