Review: The Changelings by Elle Casey

 Jayne Sparks, a potty-mouthed, rebellious seventeen-year-old and her best friend, shy and bookish Tony Green, have a pretty typical high school existence, until several seemingly unrelated incidents converge, causing a cascade of events that change their lives forever. Jayne and Tony, together with a group of runaway teens, are hijacked and sent into a forest, where nothing and no one are as they seem. Who will emerge triumphant? And what will they be when they do? 

The premise of this book really got me interested in where the story would go. When Jayne, her best friend Tony and an array of misfit teens are thrown into the forest and told to survive they could never have been prepared for what they would have to endure. The teens are first taken to a secret location for a "test" and before long things start looking stranger and stranger, especially after they are given weapons and told "there are no rules here, there are no laws".

Jayne is a fantastic main character. Just being in her head makes the book a great read. She is kick ass, sarcastic and hilarious. With the things she says and her snarky attitude the other characters either take a quick liking to her, like Tony, Spike and even Chase, or they hate her guts, like Samantha. Tony, also known as Tones Tones is her best friend. I really liked the way they became friends. There wasn't a perfect connection but it somehow worked out and we get the best of friends. Tony would do anything for Jayne and this is constantly shown throughout the book. The reader can definitely tell that Jayne is the person Tony cares for the most. The other teens all have their own personalities and they are all very different from each other. One of the other teens, Spike quickly turned into one of my favorite secondary characters. He is charming and charismatic and in Jayne's words, "has a great smile". But I feel like Chase had this charming, quite personality that just made me love him.

Most of the adults are unnerving and even a bit disturbing. Jayne's family is split and a mess and Tony's isn't much better. Then the adults running the tests are a bit like mad scientists. There is no real regard for the human life. The reader can pick up the real lack of adult supervision but in the end everything is suddenly revealed and it was something I was not expecting.

The story itself was a bit strange at the start but quickly picked up and turned into an action packed book. There was so much going on, from fantastical creatures, to amazing fighting scenes, to intense topics and somehow a bit of romance too all weaved together to create this great read. It will definitely be a book you will want to pick up soon.

5/5 stars

Blog Tour: The Changelings by Elle Casey (Excerpt)

 Jayne Sparks, a potty-mouthed, rebellious seventeen-year-old and her best friend, shy and bookish Tony Green, have a pretty typical high school existence, until several seemingly unrelated incidents converge, causing a cascade of events that change their lives forever. Jayne and Tony, together with a group of runaway teens, are hijacked and sent into a forest, where nothing and no one are as they seem. Who will emerge triumphant? And what will they be when they do? 

Excerpt:

Tony was always giving people the benefit of the doubt. I know if I was in front, I would make sure the people behind me were still behind me, especially in a dark creepy forest filled with effing ‘obstacles’, whatever those were going to be. 

“Let’s just keep moving ahead on the path and see if we can catch up to them,” suggested Tony.

Tony took the lead, turning on his flashlight, and we followed– first me, then Becky, then Finn. We didn't want to risk losing Becky the way we’d been lost already, so we kept her between us.

We were walking along for several minutes, with no sign of Jared, Chase, or Spike, when we heard shouting and screaming up ahead– the shouting, human; the screaming...not so much. We all stopped dead in our tracks. Tony shut off his flashlight. My heart stopped beating for a second and then rushed to catch up to its now accelerated rhythm. 

“What the fuck was that?” I asked, whispering loudly, totally freaked out. Becky’s eyes were giant saucers.  I could see them easily in the dark, glowing beacons coming from her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Tony grabbed my arm, squeezing as hard as he could. I slapped his hand away and shot him a dirty look. He apologized silently, just moving his lips. Finn was staring ahead of us into the darkness, probably wishing he could see like a cat so he could figure out what was waiting for us up ahead. I was seeing okay here in the dark, more so than I did back home ... probably the moonlight helped. The moon was brighter here or something.

We heard another shout then and a scream. I recognized the voice.

I definitely enjoyed this book. It was a great action-packed read with a kick-ass main character. Having just watched The Hunger Games I have to say this was reminiscent in a totally original and amazing way. Teens thrown into the forest by crazy adults and told to survive? YES. My type of book.


Let me know what you thought of the excerpt! My review will be up within the next few days :)