A Book Obsession..: Early Review: The Replaced by Kimberly Derting

Early Review: The Replaced by Kimberly Derting

, by Kt Clapsadl

The Replaced by Kimberly Derting

The Taking #2

Romantic and action-packed, The Replaced is the gripping second installment in the Taking trilogy.

Kyra hasn't been the same since she returned from her mysterious five-year disappearance. Now, on the run from the NSA, Kyra is forced to hide out with others who, like her, have been Returned. Yet she is determined to find Tyler, the boy she loves who was also abducted—all because of her. When her group intercepts a message that Tyler might still be alive but is in the hands of a shadowy government organization that experiments on the Returned, Kyra knows it's a risk to go after him. What if it's a trap? And worse, what if the returned Tyler isn't the same boy she lost?

Perfect for fans of The Fifth Wave and the Body Finder series, The Replaced is both chilling and explosive, with creepy, otherworldly elements and twisty, psychological thrills that will have you questioning what exactly it means to be human.

I need to take a moment and pause before really getting into the review to express frustration that the dreaded love triangle yet again is rearing its ugly head. It's especially frustrating in books like this where the first book "sells" you so much on the romance, like it did with Kyra and Tyler. Then magically this third wheel romance gets thrown in book two to complicate things. In fact this unwarranted love triangle (and some issues I had with Kyra that I'll get into in a bit) brought my rating down. It's a shame because I remember really enjoying the first book, but this one just didn't spark the same due to my frustrations.

Perhaps I don't fully remember how Kyra was in the last book, but this time around she seemed particularly dramatic, and she just fell flat for me. There was one reaction to a reveal that seemed over the top, especially considering it was something I felt she should have already long realized. Then of course she spends a lot of the book utterly distraught over Tyler and where he was, what happened to him etc. Which was in direct contrast to the addition of the love triangle, and just left me scratching my head. So much more of this book was spent in her head and her lamentions, and it just bogged things down for me.

Negative things aside, I did like the direction things were heading by the end (love triangle aside) and I found the reason behind her differences from the other Returned an really intersting twist. The cliffhanger ending is a pretty big whopper and has the potential to make for a whopper of a final book if things speed up a bit and Kyra gets out of her own way and returns to the kick butt heroine from the first book. It's funny, typically cliffhangers can almost ruin books for me due to the frustration, but in this case I think that final twist is what sold me on being excited for the last installment after this one was a bit lackluster. So here's hoping it all ends with a bang.

(Received a copy from the publisher)

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