#WhoRunTheWorld “Meet Your Next Book Heroine” blog tour!

This is the fantastic tour line-up for this blog tour! Make sure to check out everyone’s post!

A Secret for a Secret by Helena Hunting

June 18	COBB
June 19	Foxy Blogs	Carry the World by Susan Fanetti
June 22	COBB	All The King’s Men Duet by Kennedy Ryan
June 23	Beware of the Reader	Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
June 24	Reading Frenzy Book Blog	END OF DAY (JACK & JILL series) by Jewel E. Ann
June 25	Bobo’s Book Bank	Rock Chick by Kristen Ashley
June 26	Red Ink Hot	The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

 

 

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MY CHOICE FOR BOOK HEROINE IS: MARA DYER!

Hi y’all! I’m so happy to be participating in another round of “Meet Your Next”, in this case it’s “Meet Your Next Book Heroine” I thought long and hard about who I wanted to feature today because part of the point is to discuss someone who is not just your cookie cutter Jane Doe, but someone who is diverse, in any sense of the word that you might give it.

Hence why I chose Mara Dyer. And now I can hear the chorus. She is a white, straight girl, from an average family, socio-economically speaking. And to that I say, you are completely right. From a first look she is exactly your all-american girl.

However, there is one little feature of hers that I do believe makes her diverse, especially the way it is treated and portrayed in the books.

Miss Mara Dyer here can kill people with her mind. And again, this could be a perk, even a superpower. You could probably make a successfull hitman career out of it, however the way she is not in control of  her “power” in the slightest, makes it so that throughout the trilogy, this ability of hers is basically treated as a mental illness.

Moreover, the theme of mental illness is thoroughly explored through her being hospitalized and held in restrictive care facilities, through therapy sessions, and through also some final explanations of the power given through gene manipulation. I come from a psychology background and even though I was only at the start of my academic journey when I read this trilogy, I clearly remember thinking how the entire trilogy
could also be seen through the lenses of mental illness, from delusions, hallucinations, lack of control over the self, and the loss of credibility and respect that people with mental disorders are often met with. Being in her mind was a fragmented experience and it really showcased how unreliable the mind can be to its own self. So many times Mara was left wondering whether what was happening was real and whether she was a bad person because of something she had no control over.

Putting morality aside, I chose Mara Dyer’s character because starting from a point of total lack of control over her abilities, naivite and a positive and average view of the world, she is put through the grinder by her own mind, coming out the other side as a force of nature to be reckoned with. She is her own worst enemy, true, the same way a mental disorder can be a person’s worst enemy. It is part of you, but not who you are, and often leads to behavior that are descructive to the self and others. This is why I think Mara Dyer is such an incredible character. The entire trilogy the reader is in her mind, with all its pain and twistedness. It is frightening at times and it is empowering when you see Mara finally embracing who she is, while still trying to be a “good person”, which at the end may have a totally different meaning than what she may have first thought at the beginning of this journey.

In conclusion, Mara Dyer starts the first book as an average high schooler, and ends as a bad-ass woman, albeit  a broken and still confused one. Yet, she has finally embraced her powers and her full capacities, planning to use them for a greater good, helping others like her.

Feel free to share in the comment who is your book heroine, whether you liked Mara as a character, hated her, or if you think I am completely wrong and she’s just a horrible person.