Book Review :: Switched, by Amanda Hocking

Switched by Amanda Hocking
Series: Trylle #1
Published by Tor Books
on January 5th 2012
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Pages: 328
Goodreads

What if your entire world was built on a lie?
Wendy Everly knew she was different the day her mother tried to kill her and accused her of having been switched at birth. Although certain she’s not the monster her mother claims she is – she does feel that she doesn’t quite fit in...

She’s bored and frustrated by her small town life – and then there’s the secret that she can’t tell anyone. Her mysterious ability – she can influence people’s decisions, without knowing how, or why...
When the intense and darkly handsome newcomer Finn suddenly turns up at her bedroom window one night – her world is turned upside down. He holds the key to her past, the answers to her strange powers and is the doorway to a place she never imagined could exist. Förening, the home of the Trylle.

Finally everything makes sense. Among the Trylle, Wendy is not just different, but special. But what marks her out as chosen for greatness in this world also places her in grave danger. With everything around her changing, Finn is the only person she can trust. But dark forces are conspiring – not only to separate them, but to see the downfall everything that Wendy cares about.

The fate of Förening rests in Wendy’s hands, and the decisions she and Finn make could change all their lives forever...

Last updated on 19 January 2022

This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase with one of these links, I recieve a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read the full Affiliate Policy.

My thoughts on Switched

Switched tells the story of Wendy Everly, a girl who knew she was different from the moment her mother tried to kill her. When she was ‘born’, Wendy’s mother was convinced that she was not her baby. And she turned a knife on Wendy when she was six…but now Wendy is 17, her mother is in a psychiatric ward (thankfully! Goodness!!) and Wendy lives with her older brother and her aunty.

The story follows Wendy as she discovers that the boy who can’t stop looking at her at school is actually a tracker – the one who looks out for her protects her, and eventually tells her that she’s not actually human; her mother was right. Wendy goes with Finn (the boy) to a small gated community in Minnesota, where she meets her real mother and discovers that not only was she switched at birth into the family that she thought was hers, but she has persuasion abilities, she is a Trylle (like a troll but not in our sense of …like Billy Goats Gruff…or those little trolls with the hair that sticks up), and her mother is Queen, making her Princess.

As Wendy learns what it means to be a Princess to a non-human race, she meets various Trylle (nice and not-so-nice), tries to understand this new life, and meets the boy who is actually meant to be with her ‘host’ family and living with her ‘brother’ and ‘aunt’. I think I’m making this sound confusing, but truly, it’s not.

It’s written in first person, and although at the beginning in the first few chapters I didn’t like Wendy’s character much, she sort of grew on me, and as the story went on it seemed she changed a bit…or maybe I just decided that she was the main character, so I needed to like her. Who knows. The end of the book sort of shocked me – not by the events that happened, but just in the way that it was quite sudden.

And it didn’t help that I didn’t realise that there was an extra section at the back (written from the perspective of the enemy in the story), so when it ended, there was still about 50 pages. So that made it appear more abrupt. So, if you read it, check out for that first. There was also a character who was there for a page or two, but then she didn’t show up again…which was kind of weird, because she was the neighbour. I wanted to know more about her. Maybe she’ll show up more in the next book.

I did really enjoy it though. It was fun to see a different spin on trolls, sort of like the different spin I saw on faeries in Wings. It was a good read (it must have been – I read it the day I got it! haha!), and I’m looking forward to the next one.

Oh, I also discovered, while looking at this book online, that Amanda Hocking has a blog, so if you’re interested in checking out what other things she’s written, you can see that here.

Have you read Switched?