The replacement by Brenna Yovannof: ha ha . . . no thank you

The Replacement 

by 

Brenna Yovannoff

This books guys. There is so much simultaneous awesome and freaking terrible stuff in this book that I literally sat on the ground after finishing it for ten minutes trying to figure out what my feelings were towards the silly thing. 

Unfortunately I have come to the conclusion that it is decidedly nah. Don’t get me wrong the book delivered all that it promised, creepy town, creepier fairies, and a really dark tone. The problem was that the book spent the first two hundred pages describing said creepy town and creepier fairies and neglected to have the characters do anything about it until the last hundred pages.

 And when I say 'describing' I mean a few short scenes shoved in between. . . high school, and parties, and a terrible, terrible romance.

Characters

Mackie: is it possible for a male character to be a fainting damsel?  Because this dude was one I kid you not.

 I get it. He’s a changeling so iron and him are not friends. And I also get that iron is freaking everywhere in modern day America (is it actually America? I’m not sure) but oh my gosh this dude spent the whole book being sick, dizzy, or half conscious. 

And don’t get me wrong I love reluctant heroes, I really do. But I prefer the reluctant heroes that are asking ‘why me?’ while grudgingly dragging themselves through the enchanted forest/haunted house/whatever. Mackie just did not do anything I haven’t been so frustrated with somebodies lack of work ethic since my last group project.

Tate: ooh look a love interest. At least after Mackie quite flirting creepily at the super popular girl. ( who actually flirted back what the heck? I thought this dude was a social outcast. Guess he’s just a super-hot social outcast.) Any-who Tate’s little sister was stolen by the fairies and then replaced by a changeling. Changeling died, because it didn’t have anybody to love it apparently 

(the what?!)

And Tate get understandably pissed off. I liked her most of the time but occasionally she would act so out of character such as

 *ahem* kissing Mackie, staying behind when he told her too, kissing Mackie, learning that Mackie knew that her sister was alive and kissing him instead of punching his lights out for keeping her out the loop for like three days, 

 that I could not resist rolling my eyes and groaning.

Roswell: He’s Mackie’s best friend who ‘asks no questions’ and is also kind of pervert-y but whatever it’s a book about teenagers I’m kind of done even bothering to get insulted. 

I swear every scene this dud was in Mackie talked about how wonderful it was to have a friend that never asked questions like what?! Seriously that was his only personality trait I’m just . . . so puzzled.

Emma: Mackie’s sister who apparently kept him alive through the power of love. 

Now I’d like to point out that I am not one of the ‘oh look another conquer with the power of love’ people who seem to think that it’s a terrible trope that should be burned. But I have to admit that . . . it didn’t really fit in this world. At all. Still I liked Emma well enough which unfortunately probably makes her my favorite character.

Likes

Everything that was actually about the creepy town was spot on: I really love the whole blending of magic and the modern that’s becoming popular and parts of this book seemed to straddle the line perfectly. 

There were fairies that played in wacky rock concerts and went to college to learn about any important scientific progress to help with their potions. And then there was the darker part, with dank halls and dead girls and the ritual sacrificing of a babies. So yeah, it’s all fun and games ‘til somebody gets their blood sucked out of them. 

Actually speaking of that . . . why the heck did ‘The Lady’ (the super bad fairy) drink blood like a freaking vampire. That would be fine if you told me that vampires were a part of the fairies or, I don’t know, giving me some kind of information on them whatsoever I would have swallowed it but fine, just fine. 

Yeesh if I get another bad book like this I’m going to have to change my blog name to something like raging reviews or some such.

Dislikes

If Y’all would just give me a break with the sex-crazed constantly drunk or druggie teenagers that would be lovely thank you very much:

 I’m not even going to say anything about this because I feel like I’ve complained about it enough in Croak. Actually I am going to point out there is in fact iron in beer cans. Basically Mackie should be dead. I mean going off the assumption that waving blood in his general direction made him faint.

Shocker! The romances were all kinds of messed up. Yes that is an ‘s’ in romances there are multiple blot bunnies involving mostly Mackie and other girls.

 Because he’s just that desirable I guess despite being labeled a freak. Still Tate had her totally despicable moments as well. 

Here I have a totally theoretical question for you that is definitely not an actual scene in this book.

You have recently found out that your little sister is not only alive but brutally held captive by literal monsters, which your crappy boyfriend knew about BTW, and you have less than three days to find a way to rescue her before she is brutally killed. What do you do?

a) Make a plan to rescue her

b) Punch the guy who really wasn’t boyfriend material anyway

c) Make out with him and invite him to come upstairs to have sex with you

If you answered c) you are officially a terrible human being 

and my interest level will got down to a negative percentile.

You know what I actually can’t go on. I can’t do it. This book filled me with so much frustration for so little reason and just nope. So much nope.