Review: Switched by Amanda Hocking

I picked up this book at the library because I saw that a lot of people thought highly of it and I can see why many people would thoroughly enjoy it, but I am not part of that group. Don't get me wrong, I don't completely dislike this book, I just don't overly like it.

The idea of trolls is something completely new to me as a young adult novel reader. When we normally think of trolls it's all about their green skin, ugly warts and affinity with little goats trying to cross bridges. These trolls were completely different and I loved how Hocking turned the fairytale so it would suit the angle that she wanted to approach it at. If anything, they reminded me of witches, but the hierarchy within their own group seemed to be a lot more complicated. It was so interesting and intriguing to read about this new form of creatures.

I have to admit that I didn't like Wendy at the start of the novel. To me she seemed to be arrogant and bossy and they are not qualities that I would look for in the main character role. However, over the course of the novel she progressed and I understand that it must have been hard to introduce troll qualities at the start of the novel without giving away what she was or making her act like a b*tch. Maybe it was just the fact that when she was with the Trylle, they were even worse so made her seem better by comparison.

The powers that the Trylle have is another thing that I really liked about this novel and the driving idea that if the royalty could be bothered to use what they had been given then the whole community would be better off, I feel was a great thing to introduce in this novel as I imagine it will play an important role in the books to come in the series after this one. Even if I were a royal, I would be using my powers just to show off to everyone else that I had them.

I do have quite a few reasons for only giving this book three stars though. Firstly, I didn't really like the description of the other Trylle. 'Beautiful' is a word that gets very old very fast and as everyone's idea of beauty is different it meant that I was left feeling a bit unclear about what some of the characters actually looked like. I would have liked it if Hocking had gone into more detail with her descriptions instead of leaving me not really knowing the characters that I was spending the book with. I know that the Trylle are supposed to be very good looking and that that is part of their charm, but it is not enough to say that about every Trylle that Wendy meets.

Secondly, I think that the romance between Finn and Wendy was slightly unrealistic (and yes I know that is an odd thing to say when writing a review on a fantasy novel). In some books the romance is not introduced slowly enough, meaning that the reader is confused as to whether the characters actually like each other, but in this book it was the opposite problem. The feelings that Wendy felt towards Finn were a bit too strong considering that they had only recently met and even though they weren't supposed to be together romantically, they went out of their way to try to be. I know from personal experience that when you fancy someone the feelings you have for them can be strong, but I would have liked it more if Wendy had spent less of the novel pining for Finn.

Finally, I was waiting for the exciting, edge-of-your-seat, climax of this book, but I feel like it never really came. Yes, the scene in the ballroom was dramatic and everyone was in relative danger, but it wasn't enough danger for me to worry for the main characters and it was so painstakingly obvious that Finn wasn't going to die that I personally felt I could have skipped a few pages and still know exactly what was going on. With this book, I was waiting for a climax that never came so I was left feeling a bit disappointed after so much of a build up.

Overall, this novel was definitely not bad, it just wasn't particularly good either. From the raving reviews I expected more and maybe that was part of the problem. If I see the sequel in the library I might take it out, but if I am being honest, I do not care about the characters enough to actively seek the book out.

(Goodreads parallel)