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C8

The Retribution of Mara Dyer// Book Talk!!!!!!!

OH. MY. GOSH. It happened. What you might be asking yourself? All of it. All of it happened and it all happened in this book and I am in shock. Pure genuine shock and I cannot believe it and I loved it all and you just absolutely need to read this book.


This is the third book in the Mara Dyer trilogy and if you have not read the first or second book I have two things to say to you: what have you been doing with your life, and READ IT RIGHT NOW! I am so so sorry rad readers, but I cannot give a spoiler free book talk for this book because so much needs to be said, but I think it goes without saying that I think you should read this. I gave it 5/5 stars on GoodReads and it was a crazy, emotional, high stakes read. Okay, without further ado, into the spoilers!!


Okay, I think I can speak for all of us rad readers when I say that I absolutely positively DESPISE Dr. Kells. I hated in the beginning how Mara was right back where she had just gotten out of, on a lab table with Dr. Kells over her. She was basically paralyzed but still able to think but she wasn't able to say what she actually wanted to, really only what Dr. Kells wanted to hear and I didn't know at first if that was just the powers of some crazy drug that she absolutely would use on Mara because she is a psychopath orrrrrrr if Dr. Kells had powers herself. I'm happy that we didn't find out that Kells had powers because that would just not be a good way to take the story in my opinion. I loved how scared Kells was of Mara as well; in the beginning, even though she had basically put Mara in a coma, she was still so scared of what she could do and Mara knew it, though it was funny, and loved it, and I loved how she loved it. It just goes a lot to show how dope Mara is that even when she is on literally every drug in the book Kells still doesn't think she's safe, and Mara still has it in her to mess with her.


"The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that I was covered in blood. The second thing that I noticed was that this didn't bother me the way that it should have." (34.) I MEAN COMEEEEEE ONNNNNN! Is that not the coolest line you have ever read in a book???


Okay, Jude? I'm tired of him.

Hasn't he done enough damage? Like, we don't want you on our side anymore buddy! Not at all! Not even a little bit! Not even as a last resort! Even if you are trying to help Mara now, you are literally the reason she is in this mess so it would be best if you just went away! Big ups on him for almost killing Wayne though, granted Mara had to do the rest of it but I thought it was so fascinating how Mara just didn't care. She was just like "are you serious" and then... I still can't believe this... TOOK OUT HIS EYE to use for the retina scanner. I loved that she had no remorse for it. He tortured her so she had no problem doing it right back. What's fair is fair! This exact line from the book, I remember I was laying down, reading, unassuming, and then when I read that I literally sat up and just started clapping becuase it was SO CRAZY AND AWESOME. This line: "'You're not so bad are you?' Those were his last words before I cut his throat." YES MARA! DON'T LET ANYONE BE SO CONDESCENDING TOWARDS YOU! This book is insane, absolutely insane and the beginning was without a doubt my favorite part. Mara finally exacting all her revenge on all these people that screwed with her life so hard and made her look crazy for so long was so so so great and satisfying and gratifying to read about. When we finally got to Kells I was full on fist pumping the air. Never have I been so animated towards a book. Sure, The Mortal Instruments made me cry and so did Harry Potter but never before have I not been able to contain my fist pumping excitement and in this book did it to me.


When they had made it so far and then Kells got them again, I. Was. MAD. Kells got them right back where they were before with those stupid poisonous vents and honestly that is such a cop out but they should also be prepared for that kind of stuff by now. Regardless, Mara got the last laugh. The fact that Kells told her everything before she was about to kill Mara was just beyond stupid and also frustrating to hear about but also goes to show that she is just a bad evil villain and never stood a chance against Mara. She always had a back up plan to kill Mara just in case this all didn't work. She planned to just say that Mara went crazy, she built her record to say that she had a history that would diagnose well to some other mental illness. It was so infuriating hearing that she was just going to say that all these kids were killed by Mara. I hate that lady!! Anyways, Mara got the last laugh in the most ultimate fist pumping moment of the book, a quote that I will never forget due to the fact that for three books I hated Dr. Kells more than any other character in a book ever, well, perhaps not Voldemort... I digress. That moment of fist pumping hype would be when Kells was just about to kill Mara and thennn Mara hits us with: "Either Dr. Kells didn't know about it or she'd forgotten about it [the scalpel], becuase she was very surprised when I stabbed her in the neck." INSANITY. Michelle Hodkin is a god at writing and delivery and that is a fact not an opinion. I literally read that line over and over again becuase it was so crazy. We NEVER saw that coming and it was delivered so casually it really took the reader by MAJOR surprise. I loved it and was freaking out and okay, I'm done with going into super specific detail about this, but the begining of this book just needed some really solid discussion and analysis of Hodkin's geniuses becuase it was so good. Okay, I'm done now :)



Right away after the insanity and wickedness of the beginning we start to gather information about Jamie, Mara, Stella, and Noah. Still, we don't know if he is dead or not but I mean come on we all knew Hodkin would never kill off our golden character. I enjoyed learning about Jamie and Stella more, how their powers manifested and their back stories. I also really liked Stella a lot. She is a lot different than Mara and it is interesting to see how other people reacted to essentially the exact same thing that Mara went through.


Mara was totally losing it. She has gone totallyyyyy crazy and it is absolutely thrilling you have no idea what she is going to do and what is going to happen because of it. Thriller really is the perfect genre to describe the book. This is really just the definition of an unreliable narrator. She seriously started operating on herself... WHAT! Then she just disposes of the people that try to hurt her and her friends and she feels no remorse for it. It is --to a degree-- extremely awesome because so many times in novels like these you have characters that do something terrible to save themselves or their friends or their family and it is really the only choice they have, but they still feel awful about it. But Mara doesn't and I love that. She shouldn't. She has been through the ringer and she is also a psycho. She's the anti-hero but still the protagonist and also a little bit of a vigilante. I love it. I love all of it.


I wish we got to hear more from Noah. I don't think any of the readers were fooled into thinking that he was actually dead and he is such an exciting and interesting character and one of the reasons why I love this series so much so I was very bummed that we didn't get that much of him and then when we did get to see him he was hella confused and in a weird haze. I also found the flashbacks to grow a little boring and repetitive. I think it did add a bit to the story in that we got to know that this whole scheme was so much larger than just Mara and her friends, but still, as we went on and on and on with the genetic memory stuff I just stopped caring and wanted more action. Don't get me wrong though, certain parts were interesting and the backstory was important, I don't disagree with that.


The ending was absolutely wicked. I really was sitting there, freaking out becuase I thought Mara was going to die, then I though Noah was going to die, and this entire time I thought there was no hope for Daniel, that they just killed him and were messing with Mara to get something out of her, but thank go that wasn't the case.


This was the story of a freaking life time my dawgs. The ups and downs and lefts and rights and even perhaps upside downs you could say had be INVESTED. I do not know what I am going to do with my life now that I have finished this trilogy. Perhaps read it again and then again after that and then also again after that. Yes. That sounds like the perfect thing to do.


Okay Rad Readers, READ ON!!


- C8 ;)

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