Review | The Retribution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

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The Retribution of Mara Dyer

Author: Michelle Hodkin
Series: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer #3
Release Date: November 4th, 2014
Pages: 470
Review by: Tessa




She has lost everything. Her family, the love of her life, and possibly her sanity.

Retribution is the only thing she has left. She wants revenge for what happened to her and those she loves.

But, getting there might be harder than she thought when she wakes up back where she started, the psych ward of a hospital.

The final installment of the Mara Dyer series combines the heartbreak of losing everything with the desire to make everything right.




As with most of the series, this book was not at all what I expected. And I am not quite sure if that is a good thing or not.

I loved the first two books of the series. They are the perfect mix of mystery, darkness, insanity, and romance. All of these aspects were seamlessly tied together to create one of my favorite series. Unfortunately, the details got tangled during this conclusion to the series and prevented me from enjoying it as much as I wanted to.

I am still upset that I waited an extra year for this book. Honestly, I am not sure if it was worth it.

I feel like this is a lot like Allegiant. The hype for the book is so high that I was just disappointed when I actually read it. Also like Allegiant, there was a ton of info dumping and last minute information. There was so much information that was thrown in at the last minute. I was overwhelmed.

The Mara in this book is not the same Mara as the others. She lost pretty much all of her snark, compassion, and amazingness. She turned into some dispassionate robot acting like the real Mara Dyer. One of my favorite things about Mara was her stubborn (and sometimes stupid) mercy.

Several storylines were introduced during the story that never got closure. Including the flashbacks to Mara's grandmother's past.  I have so many questions. Like, is her grandmother still alive? If she didn't age, she should be. I would have liked a conclusion between Mara's grandmother and Naiomi too.

Also, some characters just disappear during the book without being heard from again. There was absolutely no closure about the secondary characters. Thankfully, Jamie was still alive and kicking or else I might have stopped reading the book altogether. He is still one of my favorite characters from the series. His dry sense of humor and disreputable logic kept the book alive.

I also wished to see more of Noah in this final book. For circumstances that I will not give away, that was impossible.

I did not like that during the last 50 pages of the book, the perspective switched between Mara's and Noah's. This made a confusing book even more confusing. I really dislike when perspectives are changed in the middle (or end) of a series, which is another similarity to Allegiant.

The one part of the book that provided closure was the romance. I was quite happy with how that ended (even though I cannot tell you what actually occurred).

There were too many red herrings that lead no where. It created unnecessary suspense that turned me off. The suspense was also terrible. I just felt like I was going around in useless (and annoying) circles.

I felt like Michelle was trying to appease the readers with the ending, much like Cassandra Clare and the ending of City of Heavenly Fire. I know that there is a lot of pressure to end a popular series, but I want the author to stay true to the story, even if it does not have a happy ending. I was disappointed because everything just seemed to magically work out with no concrete explanation.

Overall, I expected a better conclusion for a series that used to be one of my favorites. If you liked the rest of the series, I would try to read The Retribution, but I cannot promise that you will like it.