Mackie Doyle doesn’t belong here; he doesn’t fit in; he’s a monster hiding in our midst; and he wants more than anything to fit in and be accepted. When debut author Brenna Yovanoff’s fabulously eerie, engaging novel, The Replacement, opens, 16 year old Mackie tells us his recurring dream: it’s a dark night; he’s carried through tunnels; brought through an open window; a shadowy man telling him to wait quietly; and he knows in the crib of a human boy who’s been taken.
Mackie is a replacement; a cast-off offspring of the age-old race of faeries (the Good Neighbors, the Others) meant to stand in for a human child taken as a sacrifice for the benefit of the people of Gentry. He’s grown up hiding this secret and yearns for a normal teenage life: close friends, playing his base in a band, and maybe even a girlfriend. When the baby sister of a girl in his class dies, Mackie knows it was another replacement and he’s even more afraid of being discovered. When Tate comes to Mackie for help finding her real sister, he’s drawn into the dark, dank underworld beneath his town and back the place where he came from. Mackie has to choose whether to help Tate and the people of Gentry or submit to the will of the powerful faeries and other creepy dead things that hold the fate of the town in their power.
The world Yovanoff creates for The Replacementis dark, gloomy, eerie and so picturesquely drawn you’re on the rain drenched streets and wandering through the horrific House of Mayhem with Mackie, afraid of what grotesque thing may pop up next but unable to stop going further in. Completely engrossing and enjoyable in and of itself, The Replacement is also a perfect metaphor for both a teen’s view of adulthood (the whole town’s behavior and inability to talk about or deal with the truth) and a teen’s feelings of otherness (not being able to fit in, being an outsider who’s yearning to be accepted). The Replacement is a strong debut that promises even more well crafted, engaging, and pitch-perfect books to come.
- Posted by Cori
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