Switched - Review

Switched (Trylle Trilogy, # 1)

By: Amanda Hocking

Published: July 12th 2010 by CreateSpace

304 pages

Source: Borrowed from my friend, Paula's kindle

( Goodreads | Amazon )

Goodreads description--When Wendy Everly was six-years-old, her mother was convinced she was a monster and tried to kill her. It isn't until eleven years later that Wendy finds out her mother might've been telling the truth. With the help of Finn Holmes, Wendy finds herself in a world she never knew existed - and it's one she's not sure if she wants to be a part of.

Switched was a nice change of pace from the My Blood Approves series. Apparently, I’m in an Amanda Hocking phase. Truthfully, I’m just trying to take advantage of my friend, Paula’s kindle before I have to give it back. So I apologize if you guys are tired of this phase. Hopefully I’ll be finished with all of her self-published stuff soon.

Our main character, Wendy, has been through a lot in her short seventeen years. Her father committed suicide. Her mother tried to kill her when she was six. She’s never really fit in anywhere. She’s been expelled from numerous schools and moved around a lot. Now living with her aunt, Maggie, and brother, Matt, Wendy decides she’s really going to try this time. But then she meets Finn.

Finn tells Wendy that she’s a troll after witnessing her use persuasion--an ability where Wendy forces her will upon someone else--on someone. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never read any modern fiction about trolls. This unique and original idea left a lot of room to play with world building and mythology. I’m not saying that the world of the Trylle and Forening wasn’t fascinating, I just think maybe more could have been done with it. We’re talking trolls for goodness sakes, anything goes here.

The relationship with Wendy and Finn was entertaining, but I wasn’t always convinced of the true connection between the two of them. Finn is distant, cool, calm, and collected for the most part. He rarely shows his emotions and something about his personality just didn’t allow me to always buy the relationship at all times. Wendy is one of those characters that’s willing to put herself in harm’s way in order to keep Finn from getting hurt, but I wish YA protagonists could take a class on this. Offering yourself up to prevent others from being hurt doesn’t usually help in these stories. It’s predictable and frustrating. Let the people who are willing to fight for you do just that. You putting yourself in dangerous situations doesn’t prevent anything, it just causes them to have to work twice as hard to have to save you sorry-self-sacrificing-tail. It should probably be said that self-sacrifice is typically considered to be a noble trait, but in every YA book I’ve read where we have a self-sacrificing character, it only causes more harm than good. But now that I’m talking to the characters as if they’re real people, I think I’ll move on to happier subjects.

Have no fear, I’ve made this book sound much worse than it actually is. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I wanted to keep reading even when I had to put it down. This week has been extremely eventful in the way of disrupting my reading time. However, I always found time to press on because I was enjoying this read very much. In some ways, I think Switched was better than the My Blood Approves series, yet I’m finding myself only able to give it 3 Stars. Still an enjoyable read, and I can’t wait to see what happens throughout the remainder of the series.

Have you read Switched? What did you think? Let me know!

Got to add the other cover because it's much better.