Switched by Amanda Hocking

TL;DR changeling troll princess

(finished 7/19/15)

Oh, man. I have to disagree with all the reviewers I follow -- I did not enjoy any of the aspects that they raved about. If paranormal romance isn't your thing, stay well away from Switched. It's very typical YA paranormal romance. And I didn't like that. (To be fair, their reviews are late 2011 / early 2012, which was a different YA climate than now.)

I'm gonna start out with mentioning the Trylle. They were a pretty interesting concept, considering writing about trolls doesn't scream "swoon-worthy romance", but it was unique. I wish they passed as a little less human, but then again, I guess that kind of ruins the whole changeling scheme they have going. That part was interesting to read about. I like the setup of it.

On to everything else. I did not like any of the characters. The only ones I appreciated were Tove, Rhys, and Willa. And, unfortunately, they're only side characters. I did not find Wendy endearing, Finn was creepy at the beginning and inconsistently characterized, and Matt's behavior was borderline creepy. I did not like Finn as a romantic interest and Matt's possessiveness over Wendy came off less as "protective older brother" and more as "toeing the line of sibling abuse". He was unrealistically possessive of Wendy and it honestly creeped me out. I guess part of it could be explained by the fact that their mother tried to kill her, but most of the Matt-Wendy interactions (if not all) showed no sibling dynamic and more "father overprotective of his young daughter". Ew.

Wendy, from about page 11 onwards, decided that she liked Finn. Despite the fact that she's only known him for a week and their only interaction at that point was him staring at her in class or maybe the weird conversation they had. That is a very poor foundation to base a crush off of. There was no build-up to their romance. It just kind of was. It sprang into existence out of nowhere. Very insta-love. There was nothing that made me support their romance. Honestly, the fact that Trylle society said they couldn't be together almost made me hopeful that Wendy would wise up and move on, but nope. That doesn't happen.

The plot's pretty meh. I liked the concept of Wendy becoming acclimated to the Trylle culture, but there wasn't so much "acclimating" as there was "Wendy digging in her heels and refusing to cooperate." Most of it was to be expected, especially because she wasn't exactly there of her own free will, but I wanted to see more of her sucking it up and accepting what was going on.

Part of that problem is also that Finn and Elora do a god-awful job in trying to get her acclimated. The few questions that Wendy does actually pose on her own get pushed off until they're completely unavoidable; Finn's kind of patronizing in teaching her; Elora just flat-out ignores Wendy's opinions and dictates all the choices regarding her while explaining nothing. Elora's an even worse parent than Wendy's foster-mother who tried to kill her. (Who maybe should've just finished the job. Kimberly was at least an interesting character. Nobody else really was.)

The whole thing with the Vittra wasn't explained, either. The little short story that was included in the back of my library copy just raised more questions than it answered, and I probably would've been better off without it. I don't understand what their need for Wendy is. Just kill her and be done with it. (Or maybe I just feel that way because of how unsympathetic Wendy is as a character.)

I initially rated the book three stars, but in writing this review, I have no idea what I based that off of. I went back and changed it. The preview for the next book looks even more uninteresting and infinitely more frustrating than where Switched left off, so I have no desire to continue reading the story.

I typed up my sticky notes into a spreadsheet like I've been doing recently. There's a big gap in the middle of the book and I'm not sure if it was out of laziness or disinterest.

TL;DR the only thing that sets Switched apart from any other YA paranormal romance is that it has trolls. I'm not interested in reading the subsequent books (though I probably will anyway.) If you do like paranormal romance, this is probably a book for you.