Biblical themes in Mara Dyer
Those who know me well know that I have a teenaged daughter who speaks most fluently in the language of books. We've always enjoyed stories together, so these days I spend a great deal of time reading teen and YA literature. She reads much faster than I do, and there’s no way to keep up (especially since I need to nurture my own reading along the way). Then she’ll insist that I read something.
The latest request was the Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. She wanted to find out who Mara was and thought that we could talk through it. I kept looking descriptions of it, proclaiming that it’s “dark” and “sexy” and I'd roll my eyes. Those are the two favored descriptions of YA Lit. It’s as if the marketers don’t own a thesaurus. I suppose it started with Twilight, continued with Vampire Diaries, and kept going (and going) with City of Bones.
City of Bones, by the way, is about the Nephilim. Remember when the sons of God and daughters of men had offspring in the sixth chapter of Genesis? Cassandra Clare lets us know what happened to them. There are many Hebrew Bible references throughout the book. Then, it seems like the books became an industry, perhaps they hired ghost writers or just got into a formulaic groove, but the longer they keep going, the more the magic and symbolic beauty is missing from them.
