The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff--gush

This is a book that does all the things that good fantasy should do. I read it, increasingly worried that it was going to turn wrong and end badly, as these days a lot of books with promise do. And then, it got better and better. I can't remember who recommended the book to me, maybe Holly Black, but I am very glad she did!

It's the story of a boy who is a changeling, the replacement for the human body the fairies--THEM--have taken to sacrifice for his blood. He is a sickly creature who would have died except for the love of his sister Emma. And he has the chance to save another child from the fairies, but only if he is willing to pay the price.

I started dog-earring pages at this point:

"Is that why you hang out with me, do you think? Like, you don't mind how weird I am because when it comes down to it, you're kind of weird, too?" . . .
"It's not like that. I hate to break it to you, but there are other reasons to be friends with someone than mutual weirdness. You are actually kind of interesting, you know. And with you, I'm not always having to be happy or funny. I can say what I'm thinking. You pretty much such at being honest, Mackie, but you're easy to talk to." . . .
"Mackie, don't take this the wrong way, but all my life you've been the weirdest person I've ever met. That doesn't make you not a real person. In fact, it makes you pretty goddamn specific." . . .
"This is the defining event of my life and you're treating it like it's normal. Like it's nothing." . . .
"Well, maybe it should stop being the defining event. There's whole lot more to an average life than something that happened before you were a year old."

This is a conversation between two teenage boys, and it's about a fantastic event, about one of them not being truly human, but as the book clearly shouts to the reader in other parts--it's a metaphor. A giant metaphor that is carried out through the whole book, about the feeling that to me was so much a part of being a teenager, the sense of not being right, of having been born in the wrong place, to the wrong family, of being an alien and not being able to ever speak about what is different about me because no one will listen.

But the book just goes on an on with perfection in fantasy. There's the story about the hero who goes into the cave to be eaten and then comes out again, able to spout poetry.

And then:

"Sometimes you did your best, and it all went to hell anyway."

"You have to think about your options, weigh the consequences before you make decisions, but the advice was so worthless when it came to the things that mattered. This wasn't one of those times. This was the endgame."

"If you went willingly, then death wasn't death, but transformation. There are all kinds of things that can scare you every day. What if someone you know gets cancer? What if something happens to your sister or your friends or your parents? And what if you get hit by a car crossing the street or the kids at school find out what an unnatural freak you are?"

"You're saying it doesn't matter if they love you as long as they believe in you? . . .
"This is the natural order. Gods fall out of favor and become monsters. And sometimes they rise from the rank and file of the vanquished to become gods again."

"You have the complexity of hating what you are and where you come from. It's wonderful."

"If I was honest with myself, I hadn't been particularly brave. I'd just done the dirty work and the desperate things and then closed my eyes and hoped for something to work out."

"I did try not to get involved. . . .
"Maybe, but you came through in the end. When it counted."

This is a book that felt real in a way that only fantasy can feel real, because sometimes reality doesn't have the words to describe the nightmarish feelings that are part of life. I found myself tearing up through the ending because I felt like I had lived through the book. I don't know if other readers will have that particular experience, but I can't imagine anyone being disappointed in this book. Go buy a copy!