Review of The Retribution of Mara Dyer

Title:  The Retribution of Mara Dyer
Author:  Michelle Hodkin
Source: Bought new
Series:  Yes
Rating: 4.5/5















Goodreads Summary:

Mara Dyer wants to believe there's more to the lies she’s been told.
There is.
She doesn’t stop to think about where her quest for the truth might lead.
She should.
She never had to imagine how far she would go for vengeance.
She will now.
Loyalties are betrayed, guilt and innocence tangle, and fate and chance collide in this shocking conclusion to Mara Dyer’s story.
Retribution has arrived.

This is the final book in the Mara Dyer trilogy. I was super excited about this book even when the release date got pushed back. I absolutely loved the first two books, but the third book was a little anti-climatic for me.

The POV is mostly from Mara until we get near the end of the book then we start getting chapters in Noah’s POV which we did not get in the other books which confused me. The other issue I found with this is if I did not read the name at the top of the chapter I would not have known it was Noah and not Mara. The voices were very similar. I also found Noah and Mara were not the kick butt characters I was used to. Mara was needy and heavily relied on the character around her to support her every step of the way which is not a reflection of the first two books at all.

In the plot I also found some off references that made me question the plot. At one point Mara, Stella and Jamie make a Hunger’s Game reference about district 12. This completely pulled me out of the story and made me question when they would have time to read/watch the Hunger Games movies between running for their lives and being locked in a “treatment facility”.  I know it’s silly but it pulled me out of the story and made the story line inconsistent. I also felt like some of the chapters skipped almost. The characters would be in one setting then without any explanation they would jump to somewhere new. I re-read a few pages over again to ensure I did not skip any pages, it felt like it got cut out but the plot hole was never repaired.

Overall I loved this series, but the third book was disappointing. There is a lot of story that has not been explained or any guidance given to where the story is going or where the characters are going from here. The story feels incomplete.