Replacement Child - A Memoir (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
Mandel’s family suffered an unthinkable tragedy. An airplane crashed into their neighborhood, killing several people, including Judy’s eldest sister, Donna, and leaving her sister Linda, forever physically scarred. Mandel deftly examines her role in the family as the “replacement child,” born to her parents a few years after the crash. With such a troubled family history being present prior to her birth, she carefully retraces the aftermath of that horrific day through the tremendous grief suffered by her family members and trying to understand her role in the family dynamic. There have been so many tragedies like this and I always wonder how one can move on, summon up the courage to move forward, and live through that kind of heartbreak. Mandel lifts that curtain, revealing her keen observations into how differently each family member faced their grief and struggled through life and their painful past. This was not a good book. I think when your book is titled Replacement Child and when all the blurbs and back jacket say it is about being a replacement child but you only mention the term replacement child in the last 50 pages while dismissing that you really suffered any ill effects of it, then you have just epic failed at memoir writing. The 'storyline' skips around too much to follow, instead of building to tell a story, it just seems like a hodgepodge of shoddy parenting and cliche life choices. The author never fleshes out the 'characters' as real people so I just couldn't seem to care much about them. In all it just feels shoddy and amateurish.
What do You think about Replacement Child - A Memoir (2011)?
Heartbreaking but not in a terrible way. I couldn't put it down.....Pretty quick read.
—mindy542
I really loved and enjoyed this memoir. Definitely adding it to the top 10.
—tristaclare
