“You could start a fire with the heat between you two.”
“You're mistaking bitter animosity for heartfelt affection.”

You know how there are always those previously hyped books that you’re a little late to the party with (or, in this case, way late), and you end up worrying that maybe you’ve missed your chance? Maybe it fit the trends of the time a little too well, and now those years have gone by, and what if you aren’t the same person who would’ve loved that book back then? Or maybe that’s just me, and I overthink everything—nothing new there! Anyways, that’s exactly what I worried about, going into this series.

“I was warned about you, you know.”
And with that half-smile that wrecked me, Noah said, “But you're here anyway.”

Thankfully, that was not even the slightest bit the case with The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, because I enjoyed this book so much. I actually was advised by so many people not to bother because they didn’t think I’d like it, but something in my gut kept leading me towards it, and I’m so happy that I finally caved and picked it up! There was no let-down, no feeling of it being over-hyped; it flew by and left me so intrigued (and a little warm and fuzzy).

“My God, you’re like the plague.”
“A masterfully crafted, powerfully understated, and epic parable of timeless moral resonance? Why, thank you. That’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me,” he said.
“The disease, Noah. Not the book.”

While there are a lot of things to like here—the plot, the writing style, and the characters all drew me in easily—my favorite thing about it had to be the banter. Mara and Noah have such a weird, hilarious, sarcastic flirtation between them that never got old, and even once the sparks had starting flying, I loved that they kept up their wit and poked fun at each other like some sort of long-suffering married elderly duo.

“Because,” he said, “you're not broken.”

Sadly, I don’t have much more to say, because this has been sitting on my “review to come” shelf a mortifyingly long time, but I will say that revisiting it to write this review has made me so excited to pick up the second book and finally continue the series, and I honestly expect it to only get better from here.

———

Buddy read with Reg!