Review: The Replacement By: Brenna Yovanoff

Title: The Replacement

Author: Brenna Yovanoff

Published: September 21st, 2010

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars!

Goodreads Summary:

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.

My Thoughts:

This is a hard review to write for me, only because I didn't really enjoy this book, it just wasn't my kind of thing, I don't know what kind of genre to classify this book as. It was kind of like a twisted fairytale, the town and the world that Yovanoff created was different from anything that I have read before. It was hard to connect with the main character Mackie Doyle, he wasn't relatable in my opinion but, I did enjoy him as a narrator and he really brought the story together, merging the world of the town with the twisted world of Mayhem. 

Mackie Doyle is a replacement, he was left in the crib of a human baby traded for him. More than anything his whole entire life he wished that he was a normal human like everybody else, he wants to belong, his family knows and understands that he is a replacement but, they love him anyway. He as a very close and endearing relationship with his sister. The town and the underground world of the slag heaps have a twisted unspoken agreement, they take their children and leave replacements, and in turn the town is given prosperity.  Mackie has just wanted to be human all his life, he has never question what he was or where he came from but it all changes when he begins an uneasy friendship with a girl named Tate.

Mackie was an interesting character and learning about how he was a replacement and what it meant for him and his life in the human world was so fascinating to me. He begins to learn more about what he is because of Tate, he wants to help her and it gives him the drive he needs to find out the answers he has never wanted to look for before. He was a sweet and genuine character, they were a couple of qualities that I really enjoyed about him and endeared him to me and kept me reading the book. 

Overall, I just don't think that this book was for, I don't think it was badly written or not a good story but, just not my cup of tea. It had a mixture of horror and fairytale like aspects to it which were intriguing but, just didn't interest me. One of the positive for me was that this book was unlike anything I have ever read before and I was definitely glad that I tried to expand my reading tastes.