The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff

352 pages

Razorbill, (2010-09-21)

$17.99 (Amazon.com, Hardcover)

Procurement

I received the ARC from the publisher for review.

My Grade

Plot: 4

Setting: 5

Writing: 4

Originality: 5

Characters: 5

Romance: 4

Overall: 27/30 = 90% A

Cover/Title Bonus: 5

Overall

A thought provoking, spooky story of a weird double boiler kind of town with a secret that makes your skin crawl.

Summary (Goodreads)

Mackie Doyle seems like everyone else in the perfect little town of Gentry, but he is living with a fatal secret – he is a Replacement, left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now the creatures under the hill want him back, and Mackie must decide where he really belongs and what he really wants.
A month ago, Mackie might have told them to buzz off. But now, with a budding relationship with tough, wounded, beautiful Tate, Mackie has too much to lose. Will love finally make him worthy of the human world?

First Line

I don’t remember any of the true, important parts, but there’s this dream I have.

 

Most Memorable Scene(s)

Mackie’s first visit to Mayhem was awesome. And yes, that means nothing to you if you haven’t read it. 😉

Plot

This entire book was bizarre but in a “I have to know more” kind of way. Figuring out more about where Mackie is from and how he’s coping with the symptoms of living with the humans was weird but very interesting.

Setting

The town of Gentry is wicked weird. It always rains. Children are routinely found deceased in their beds but they aren’t really the missing children but rather a replacement from an unknown source. But the source really isn’t unknown but rather ignored by the people of Gentry. That part of the story really bothered me.

Writing

The story is written in the point of view of Mackie and while I enjoyed being in his mind I found it just slightly confusing at times because at first you really have no idea of what’s going on and you want to know more but Mackie was kind of lazy and uncaring to a degree.

Originality

I haven’t ever read anything quite like this one. If you’ve seen any Tim Burton film or even Coraline you’ll really enjoy this book. The weirdness is a little hard to get used to if you’ve never read anything like it but overall I was genuinely interested in finding out more about the weirdness.

Characters

As I stated I found Mackie’s character at first to be lazy and uncaring but he quickly changed once other people were submitted to indirect harm because of him. He also showed character growth and courage.

Roswell is Mackie’s best friend. I enjoyed his character. He grounded Mackie and was always there to help.

Emma is Mackie’s sister and she’s another amazing supportive character to Mackie.

Tate is the older sister of a recently deceased child of the town. She confides in Mackie but it takes a while to actually build a relationship between them, even a friendly one.

Romance

Mackie, even though he’s not so normal, still has the normal teen hormones. He’s attracted to a girl named Alice but then other events snag his attention to another love interest. Their relationship, while a love hate kind of thing, built up to quite a cute relationship.

Cover/Title Bonus

The love this cover. It’s a perfect representation of what’s waiting for you inside. And the title is very fitting but not very original, although, I don’t know what would “replace” it. 😉

Ending

Let’s just say I was very happy with this ending. It ended with out any loose ends so I’d assume this is a stand alone title. However, I enjoyed Mackie so much that I would probably pick up any books with him as the character.

I’m going to giveaway my ARC in the next post!