Review: The Replacement - Christine Kelsey and Cassie James

Review: The Replacement - Book #1 The Thorns of Rosewood Series - Christine Kelsey and Cassie James - July 2019

When I grabbed The Replacement by Christine Kelsey and Cassie James, I have to admit I thought I was just reading another bullymance novel that would turn into a reverse harem. Other than that I wasn't sure what I would get. Turns out that this book has a twist as the main character is, in fact, an AI robot designed to look like Piper Hawthorne. The real Piper Hawthorne died at the end of the year at a party and now her parents have paid an up and coming scientist to create a replacement for them as Piper 2.0. She has all of Piper's memories and the questionnaire answers uploaded to her system and was created to be a comfort to those who lost Piper. However, when she arrives at school Piper's friends are anything but happy to see her. In fact they are disgusted and start a plan to get her to leave as if they can't have the real Piper then a replacement won't do the trick. The guys have their turn with her and besides Jude the Jerk, the others Brennan and Tyler are actually starting to develop feelings for her which of course, they are so worried about their image and status as the kings of the school that they won't be honest. As the book goes along, we see that Piper 2.0 isn't exactly a robot as such as she is starting to develop her own personality along with Piper's which should be impossible. What happens though when just as she is starting to get things rolling at school and finding her way in the world, Piper's real mother Jackie isn't happy as she wants her daughter back not some machine as wasn't the AI supposed to be a replica of Piper, not her own person? The Replacement ends on a major cliffhanger which had me grabbing from KU Book #2 The Proxy to see what will happen to Piper 2.0.