Review of "The Replacement"

"The Replacement
Brenna Yovanoff


4

Pub. Date: September 21, 2010
Pages: 352

Synopsis: Mackie Doyle is not one of us. Though he lives in the small town of Gentry, he comes from a world of tunnels and black murky water, a world of living dead girls ruled by a little tattooed princess. He is a Replacement left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now, because of fatal allergies to iron, blood, and consecrated ground, Mackie is fighting to survive in the human world.

Mackie would give anything to live among us, to practice on his bass or spend time with his crush, Tate. But when Tate's baby sister goes missing, Mackie is drawn irrevocably into the underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem. He must face the dark creatures of the Slag Heaps and find his rightful place, in our world, or theirs.

"Edward Scissorhands" meets "The Catcher in the Rye" in this wildly imaginative and frighteningly beautiful horror novel about an unusual boy and his search for a place to belong.

This review is probably going to frustrate people, because writing it is frustrating me. I really enjoy "The Replacement" and thought it was a really cool book, but for some reason I didn't fall in love with this book and I am having trouble figuring out why. I really loved the plot of the book and thought the story was really intriguing, but I just didn't love it like I thought I would. The main character Mackie is really interesting because of his allergies to iron. I loved seeing how he would react to certain situations. Another thing that I liked was that Mackie was not perfect. At the beginning of the book he spent a lot of time looking out for himself and trying to protect his image; this mostly had to do with his father pointing out that someone who is different shouldn't make waves.

I'm not sure if it was just me, but Tate's character made me want to smack her at times. She just seemed all over the place, which I got at the beginning of the book, her sister had died and no one would listen to her, but at a certain point it got a bit annoying. She would just kind of appear in a scene and then get upset and leave. The funny thing about this behavior is that it made me like Mackie more because it didn't change his feelings for her. I did like Tate's devotion to her sister and how she could see through the magic that so many others ignored.

My favorite thing about this book was how creepy it was and it wasn't just the living dead that were scary; the role that the town people's played was also a bit frightening when you thought about it. I liked how the characters broke away from this and risked everything to change the towns cycle, even if that wasn't their initial thought when they decided to take action. Yovanoff created a terrifying set of characters in the underworld, many were grotesque, but I some of them had human feelings or desires. It was super creepy how an underworld being could take over a human life so easily. I could say more about this creepiness, but I have to leave something for you guys to discover in the book!

To me the beginning of "The Replacements" was good but the end of the book was awesome. I wished I had loved all of it, but it just didn't happen. I think most people will enjoy this book even more than I did and it is the perfect book to read before Halloween. If other people have read this book please comment with your feelings because I would love to hear them!