The Replacement

De: Rachael Wade

Narrado por: Melissa Barr

Contains sexually explicit content and mature subject matter, including language and elements of abuse.

A gritty new adult drama about a young woman's self-destructive quest to find purpose, self-worth, and love in a broken world.

My name is Elise Duchamp. I'm 23 years old, and I'm known as the town whore.

No, not the kind who exchanges sexual favors for money. The other kind. The kind who gives it all away for free, whenever and however she likes. I am that girl. The one everyone whispers about and the one none of the girls seem to like, because all of their boyfriends either want to sleep with me or already have. Promiscuity is my thing - the kind that slowly, violently turns my insides black but gives me something I need.

All things considered, I'm not completely reckless. I'm safe, and contrary to popular opinion, I do have a heart. I live in a world of careless choices, and with those choices come careless people. I cannot judge them, because I am one of them. I, too, bow down to the altar of the self-serving. I am not a good friend. I am not and never could be anyone's girlfriend. I'm convinced any goodness in me shriveled up and died long ago.

But I am a replacement. That is something I know how to be, and this is a story of the lengths I'd go to in order to keep it that way.

©2014 Rachael Wade (P)2015 Rachael Wade

Surprising

What did you love best about The Replacement?

The brutal honesty.

What other book might you compare The Replacement to and why?

I have not read or listened to any other book that this compares to.

What does Melissa Barr bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

She does a wonderful job of bringing emotion to the characters. And, unlike with many female narrators, I don't mind her rendition of the males.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I can honestly say that there were times when I stayed up much later than I should have so I could continue the story.

Any additional comments?

As I said earlier, the brutal honesty is wonderful. I found myself connecting with Elise because she wasn't able to understand why she did the things she did but she did them, anyway. In my experience, this is what happens in real life. People don't always do the right thing and don't always understand why they are doing the wrong thing, even when they know it's wrong.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

good read

"This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of Audiobook Blast."

was a good book but not exactly what i like to read

Girl has some major Issues

Any additional comments?

***This audiobook was provided by the author/narrator/publisher free of charge in exchange for an unbiased review ***

Elise could benefit from a little therapy.
Since she doesn't have that, she carries out a self-hate/hurt cycle by sleeping with almost every guy in her small town - even if she isn't attracted to them, even if they aren't nice to her, even if they are married.
And if that sounds like it'd be hard to listen to... at times it is. This book is not a happy book. It is engrossing. I enjoyed listening to it and was fascinated. But it's one of those where you go, "NO don't do it! Don't!" And the character does it anyway of course.
If you like listening to trainwrecks, this is your book.
What saved this book was there is an HEA in it. And it needs it - I wouldn't have been happy if the author had left the very damaged Elise to keep on hurting herself (and others).

Overall, I really liked the experience so full stars for that.

The story though: There is a character that was a former friend of Elise used as an odd plot device. You never meet her, and in the big picture, she doesn't matter. If you take one trait away from the character would she have been included in the story at all? I can see this written better, but as it is it was just flat and felt more like being preached to.

The ending with the ****SPOILERS: letter to the town was a bit weak. After the drama buildup - gunpoint, the threat of almost forced sex between not just one but two unwilling characters, and the assault on her face -- the letter was just patted on. But I don't know how else this could have wrapped up. After doing what she'd done for YEARS, it wasn't like it could magically all get better.
But the story still ends happily, and Elise gets a good guy. Worth the listen? Yes indeed. And a nice listen too; the narrator Melissa Barr was great. The audio of this book was very good, and I don't recall having trouble with even the intense scenes where there were raised voices (often a trouble spot where the sound can be too sharp on the ears with earbuds in). I would listen to her again.

Absolutely love this book!

What a great read. This is a sizzling hot book about the other woman's point of view. What is behind it? What are her thoughts? What happened in life to make her that way? Most importantly, will she ever truly find love?

This book is a drama filled romance and even has some suspense and danger in it. I loved the ending too! The author, Rachael Wade does a fantastic job on this story. It has a plot and substance. The narrator, Melissa Barr does a great job delivering this story to us too. With multiple voices, emotions and empathy. Together these two people made this performance one that I couldn't walk away from! It is amazing how the human mind works! Well done!

I received this audio book as a gift in exchange for a honest and unbiased review. This is my first read by this author and won't be my last!

Predictable

I received this audiobook free from the narrator in exchange for my honest review.

STORY:
The female main character Elise is a woman who likes to have sex. Preferably, she enjoys having sex with unavailable men, men who are engaged, married or for whatever reason want her body and nothing more. Elise blames her childhood or, more specifically, her father for causing her to become the emotionally frigid, sex/crazed woman she has become. During the 1st 1/3rd of the book we read about Elise's sexual escapades and debauchery; entertaining yet very predictable. By the time is read the 1st third of the book, I knew where the rest of the story would go. **** Do not read the rest of this paragraph if you do not want to view a spoiler!*** My guess is that like me, most romance readers will guess early on that eventually, one of the men Elise encounters will evoke feelings in her that she's not accustomed to feeling. Try as she might to fight these feelings, well, you know how the rest the story goes.....

There were some holes in the storyline. For example, Elise flat out will not or maybe cannot (we aren't told which is true) even attempt to be part of a meaningful, committed, intimate relationship with a man. I understand that people can and do develop intimacy issues based on how they were raised or if they were abused yet in this story, there's no evidence of abuse significant enough to cause Elise's behavior. It just didn't correlate.

PS: if you find yourself enjoying this book and would like to hear the whole thing, don't stop reading or listening after it says, "the end". There is an epilogue. Ms. Wade, you should probably not type the words, "the end" until it really is the end!

PERFORMANCE:
During 98% of this recording Melissa Barr gives a 5-star performance! 98% of the time Ms. Barr's words flowed seamlessly, her voices were realistic and believable (even while portraying male characters). Her pitch was perfect, pauses well-timed and she exuded just the right amount of emotion. However, there is that other 2%… About 1/4th into the book, I began noticing that there were times when her speech sounded, "jerky", (jerky being the only word I can think of to describe how the tone/pitch would change very abruptly). For example, the word, "written"' was pronounced, "writ-ten". After listening for a while, I realized that this primarily happens when Ms. Barr says the word, "to". Either she pronounces the word, "to" in an odd way or whatever word she verbalizes AFTER saying the word, "to" is stated in a tone and pitch that differs from how she spoke prior to saying the word, "to". Because the majority of her performance was so outstanding, these curt, abrupt changes were a bit distracting. On occasion I was able to hear what sounded like an East Coast accent. Perhaps her attempts at stifling this accent were responsible for this issue? All in all, Ms. Barr is a talented narrator and I would listen to more of her books in the future. Actually, I'd listen to her again as long as she doesn't use the voice she created for Tracy the tattoo artist....Tracey didn't sound like a badass tat artist but sounded like a valley girl cheerleader!