Dripping with a morbid, tense feeling, The Replacement is an surprising, if not odd addition to the supernatural genre. The Replacement features Mackie Doyle as our hero, who's not really a mortal boy but rather a replacement living in a human household, after his people stole the original child. Due to his nature of a being a replacement, Mackie is vulnerable to blood, iron, and the will of God - practically any mundane item in the human world could kill him. However, the plot only starts to tense after Mackie meets Tate and becomes intricately connected to the world that he first came from - the underground of Gentry. 
 The first thing I noticed about the Replacement was that, it was a stand alone - which really surprised me, because if you look at any bookshelf..99.9999% of YA paranormal series are going to be trilogies. So I was hyped about this series! The Replacement definitely succeeds in some regards, but there were certain qualities that I found to be completely lacking. 
 The world building, the total atmosphere of the story was masterful, the same brooding, darkly veiled anxiety was omnipresent in this book and it reinforced a lot of themes in Yovanoff's writing. Another point is that I like how Yovanoff never tries to label Mackie's coterie of paranormals; they're never conclusively called anything other than Replacements, which makes it sorta interesting to try and figure out about them. Yet it also blinds the reader, as the whole group of paranormals is never fully comprehended and the hierarchies of power/reactions of the paranormals seems odd. 
 However Mackie's personality, and the inability of him to really do anything was really annoying. He's quite a physically vulnerable character, and he seems quite subservient and quiet. I found myself more enamored of people like his friends or even the eccentric Tate. He's not really a hero, but his actions at the end really redeem him. 
 I definitely wanted more elaboration on everything actually. More history on Mackie, more on the paranormal people, more on replacements and the town, and I wanted to see the future of the town as well as relationships. The Replacement has a great brooding atmosphere that seems perfect for any tortured poet, yet it doesn't really help a full length novel like this one. 
 Still an interesting read, The Replacement is a good novel for those sick of long drawn out series, and those looking for a more peculiar YA read.