perhaps for my children your surface will smile

[timeripple]

For lack of any hilariously entertaining real-life incidents, I thought I might as well post a review that I've been sitting on for a while. It's Brenna Yovanoff's The Replacement, and this is a book that surprised me.

I love being surprised like this. This is maybe a little more enthusiastic than it would have been, had I not read The Replacement on the heels of a number of books that disappointed and enraged me with their smug mediocrity, abuse of cliches, and failure to examine their own premises.

If you’re a Celtic mythology purist, you will probably not like The Replacement. Happily I am not. As long as you don’t misspell anything, I don’t care who you conflate or combine or just plain make up.



The plot goes something like this:

MALCOLM "MACKIE" DOYLE: I’m allergic to iron and I have a disturbing tendency to swoon at school blood drives. Also, I can’t go on consecrated ground.
TOWNSPEOPLE: Oh la, Mackie, it’s too bad that completely normal teenage rebellion against your pastor father will keep you from attending poor little Natalie Stewart’s funeral! It’s so sad that these things happen in our otherwise strangely perfect and prosperous town. Her sister must be so devastated.

TATE STEWART: That thing they buried? Not my sister. Because MY SISTER’S NOT DEAD. And you, Mackie “Weirdly Hot, Shame About the Fainting Fits” Doyle, are going to help me get her back.
MACKIE: No, I’m not.
TATE: Yes, you are.
MACKIE: No, I’m going to pass out in front of the town slag heap, discover the underground court of the dead and other disturbing things, have a chat with their creepy, adorable little princess the Morrigan, and play a guest gig with the local superstar fae rock band.
TATE: And then you’re going to help me get my sister back.
MACKIE: No, I’m not. I’m going to learn about the other fae-and-things court in town, have a chat with the Morrigan’s sister and her little pet sacrifice...kid...crap.

TATE: MACKIE.
MACKIE: FINE, OKAY? *FINE.* P.S. I find your intense, desperate stare kind of compelling.
TATE: Let’s make out. But make it quick, because in about ten minutes we need to crash an ancient ritual to save my sister and I need to beat a dude up with a crowbar.
MACKIE: ...hot.

After eyeing this book askance for months, I was pleasantly surprised. Astonished, even. Dark and atmospheric, this is the latest in a lineage of books with echoes of Tam Lin and changelings all mixed together. And... I liked it. A lot. It’s not a perfect book, but it is an intensely interesting one.

There are few narrative surprises here. We know up front what’s wrong with Mackie, what’s wrong with the town. (Mackie’s a changeling. Guess what happens to the real kids.) But the constant play between beauty and ugliness, chosen and biological families, charmed lives vs Dealing With It kept me fascinated. I loved the textures of Yovanoff’s worlds, particularly once we meet the Morrigan, the toothy tattooed little princess. The Morrigan, who Kirkus described as “Tim Burton-esque,” which is pretty accurate. But for me she (and the whole slag heap) were also Sendakian (Maurice Sendak, of the Outside Over There Sendaks). I keep imagining her and the others under the slag heap in cave-Gollum colors, textures--black and silver, strings, scales, pointed teeth and dark fishblood dripping. (Crap, how awesome would a Sendak-illustrated LotR be?)

And oh, how much do I love Tate Stewart-the-love-interest? Tate “Monsters Stole My Sister and I WANT HER BACK” Stewart. Desperate, fierce Tate Stewart who faces down the Cutter: scourge of the Hall of Misery, doer of dirty work and dirty deeds, sadist and masochist both, wearer of claws and threatener of significant others. When faced with him, most people (including Our Hero) run away, piss themselves, or get hurt very, very badly.

Tate? Tate whips out a f***ing crowbar.

I love a girl who’s prepared.

On the one hand, I think this would have been an awesome story to see from Tate’s point of view, because she is awesome and can beat people up if necessary. But on the other hand, I really love hearing the monster’s voice. Instead of yet another “Oh there is a pale mysterious boy at my school, I think he has something to do with these mysterious goings-on!” story, we get “I am a pale mysterious boy, but surely these mysterious goings-on (which totally have to do with me) don’t ACTUALLY have to do with me! La lalala can’t I just sit here in the corner and play my bass and daydream about girls and OH CRAP I HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE MYSTERIOUS GOINGS-ON NOW.”

And that? That feels fresh and interesting and the more I think about it, the more gleeful I get. (I love subversion.) I've left out a few things, like Mackie's devoted sister Emma and her bio lab study partner Janice, and Mackie's best friend (whose name I have sadly forgotten). I love them too!

As for the underdeveloped elements (there are a few: I would’ve loved to see more of Mackie’s changing relationship with his human family, especially his plot point mother)--saying “More of that, please, it’s great!” is as much a compliment as it is a criticism.

Comments

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

Well, of Tithe, and the many other books (many of them pre-Tithe) that participate in that particular set of traditions. This is one of the few I've seen, though, that really makes something of the question of why bother with changelings in the first place. Many texts treat changelings as just something that the fae do because they're fae and that's what they do; here, the arrangement actually has a logic and a purpose.

[snowqueenofhoth.livejournal.com]

Logic and purpose, always good things.