Switched

Switched by Amanda Hocking

I have come across a book that instead of periodically crying, "Foul!" it screams, "ANGST."

In the field of young adult literature, there seems to be a select few books that have this strong notion that all teenagers are angry, they don't make sense, they act the way they do for illogical reasons, and have a childish element to them. After reading this book, I would be inclined to put this book into that category.

Anyways.

So a brief summary, we have our main character ANGST, I mean, Wendy who we find out her mother tried to kill her when she was six. Her mother, Kim, also decided since the day Wendy was put into her arms at the hospital that Wendy was not her real child. A little unstable.

So Wendy was saved by her big brother Matt from her mother, and she now lives with Matt and her aunt Maggie since her Dad died when she was five or something.

Matt is a super over protective brother who's way too engrossed in his little sister's life. It's kind of creepy.
Maggie is a fun aunt who tries to help Wendy as best as she can in whatever way she can. She pretty much just the 'responsible' figure though and doesn't have a lot of active parts in the book. It's just kind of acknowledge that she's responsible for the bills and feeds Wendy.

Wendy on the other hand has these great lines about her school life like, "I don't know what it is but everyone always dislikes me," or, "I could do without school because it's so boring," and she falls asleep in class. She basically is super whiny. ALL THE TIME. Come to find out she's also a super picky eater and is essentially on a vegan diet because she doesn't like meat, she also doesn't like to wear shoes. And she probably couldn't logic her way out of a box. She could angst out of it most likely, just remind her about school and she could probably angst thrash her way out.

Now Wendy is actually a changeling child (her mother, Kim was right, although killing her was a bit extreme) and she finds out from Finn who is a tracker who has come to find her. Also, Finn informs her that when she thinks commands at people (she does this at least once before we meet Finn) it's called persuasion, a troll ability.

Anyways, the part of this book I did enjoy was the concept of trolls. Hocking managed to re-imagine trolls in a way I found believable and slightly enjoyable. I could have done without so much senseless angst from Wendy, but the other characters saved me into reading the whole book. So the difference between Hocking trolls and other trolls are as follows. Hocking trolls look like humans, they often put their babies into human society so that they can be raised comfortably and when they reach around the age of 18, they start to develop abilities so they're picked up by trackers and brought back to the troll community. Some trolls have an odd green hue to their skin but it's not as if they're GREEN, it's just a tinge from my understanding. Also, some of the abilities they develop can be persuasion, future seeing, telekinesis, control of the wind, control of fauna, and a bunch of other stuff. Basically a lot of things to do with nature, or the nature of people/trolls. When the changelings are brought back to the troll city, they go through a christening and get to choose a new name to reflect their new life.

I don't remember at exactly what point is halfway through the book, so I'll stop here. I'm going to read the second and third book in the series because I happened to get them all from the library on a recommendation. It'd also screw up my reading system if I skipped over them.

Onward!