Review: Switched

Switched by Amanda Hocking
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Switched is the first book in Amanda Hocking’s Trylle trilogy, and after hearing so much about the trilogy I decided to grab the combined edition when I saw it on offer in the bookstore. It had caught my attention a couple of times and I was intrigued, meaning I was more than willing to dive into the story when I got the chance.

I’m going to be honest and say I had a lot of trouble with this one. So much trouble that I contemplated not finishing on more than one occasion. I would keep picking it up, finding I was unable to get into it, and putting it back down. Considering all I have heard about the success of the book, the series, and the author, I found myself with so many questions. Questions fans will probably deem as an attack, so I will forego asking them – but they were still there in my mind as I was working my way through the story.

As I had the entire trilogy in one book, I decided to persist. It took longer than I would care to admit to, considering this is such a short read by my standards, but I did finish it in the end. Things did improve enough for my rating to go from a one-star rating to being a two-star rating, but I was never amazed with the book. Were it not for the fact I have the entire trilogy in one book, I know for a fact I would not be reading book two. However, having them all, curiosity and determination have me willing to read book two – it will probably take me a while, but I will do it.

At this point, you’re probably questioning why I found this book so difficult. There were quite a few issues, but I will only list a few, otherwise I fear I will end up with an overly lengthy list of things I was not amazed by.

First up, the characters. I did not care for anyone. There were a couple of characters introduced later in the book who could have been fun, but nobody reached their full potential. With the side characters being the only slightly interesting characters, and with them never reaching their full potential, I found the only real feelings I had beyond my disinterest were negative emotions. I found our leading character annoying, and the attempt at romance to be empty.

Speaking of empty, I feel as though there was no emotion within this story. There were plenty of things where we could have felt something, yet there was nothing. It was a list of what was happening, telling us what happened without giving us anything to feel emotion towards. In fact, I feel as though our characters only felt emotion when the author decided to point out someone felt something – for example, the seemingly endless temper tantrums that were mentioned.

As annoying as the aforementioned points were, my biggest issue was with the way the world came to life. We would be introduced to something and two paragraphs later it would be explained. There would be little by way of interaction and build up, and it seemed things never developed beyond someone explaining it to our main character. I wanted the world to build, I wanted to view things, and I feel as though everything was handed to us rather than letting us experience things with the air of mystery that makes world building so fun. Even the one element where an attempt was made at being mysterious, it was quickly brushed aside and explained when the author got bored of walking around it – it was as though it was too difficult to keep anything a secret, with the childish glee of letting everyone know everything being the desired form of storytelling.

Although very little happened with this story – I feel as though it was a lot of introduction with hardly anything happening within this story – things towards the end did interest me a tiny amount. There was potential opened up for the rest of the series, and my fingers are crossed that things get better. There is so much I would like to see with this one, so many things that could be great, but my hopes are set rather low.

As I said, I will read book two – but when that will be, I cannot say.

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