Author: Amanda Hocking
Publication date: January 3rd 2012
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Age group: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Cover rating: 4/5
Content rating: 3.5/5
Buy: Amazon
Description:
When Wendy Everly was six years old, her mother was convinced she was a monster and tried to kill her. Eleven years later, Wendy discovers her mother might have been right. She’s not the person she’s always believed herself to be, and her whole life begins to unravel—all because of Finn Holmes.
Finn is a mysterious guy who always seems to be watching her. Every encounter leaves her deeply shaken…though it has more to do with her fierce attraction to him than she’d ever admit. But it isn’t long before he reveals the truth: Wendy is a changeling who was switched at birth—and he’s come to take her home.
Now Wendy’s about to journey to a magical world she never knew existed, one that’s both beautiful and frightening. And where she must leave her old life behind to discover who she’s meant to become…My thoughts:
I have been looking forward to reading Switched for a long time! I really curious about the books that made self-publishing author Amanda Hocking famous in the literary world and was excited to see they were being published- with seriously lovely covers too! What drew me to this book was that it's about trolls. I've never read a book about trolls before. I'm sure they exist but not on my bookshelf. So it was already different and unique before I started it.
I really like Wendy Everly. Her narration is really strong and I could just picture her so clearly. She's a genuinely nice, level headed person despite the fact that her mother tried to kill her when she was six and everybody she meets backs slowly away from her. The storyline with her mother was so creepy and fascinating! It was obviously a shock for Wendy to find out that her mother wasn't crazy at all- she was telling the truth when she said Wendy had been switched at birth. As a child, I used to read lots of tales about changelings and I still find them really interesting to read about.
Finn is a wonderful character! He's very mysterious and you never know quite what to make of him. I liked that he insisted on being honest with Wendy about everything even if it wasn't going to be the answer she wanted to hear. I thought their relationship developed at a believable pace and definitely wasn't overbearing like in lots of books.
There wasn't a whole lot of action in this book though! It was mostly just world building and getting to know the characters. I'm hoping this will change in book two, which I should be getting to really soon! I'm very excited about this series and I would recommend it to anybody who's looking for something a little bit different. The YA scene is certainly not flooded with books about trolls.
