Book Information - When Wendy Everly was six-years-old, her mother was convinced she was a monster and tried to kill her.  It isn’t until eleven years later that Wendy finds out her mother might’ve been telling the truth.
With the help of Finn Holmes, Wendy finds herself in a world she never knew existed – and it’s one she’s not sure if she wants to be a part of.

Review – Wendy is a seventeen year old who has always felt that she didn’t fit in anywhere.  This all started from a very young age when her mother attacked her at her sixth birthday party and tried to kill her.  She now lives with her brother and her aunt, but Wendy still doesn’t really feel like she belongs.  Then a new student, Finn, arrives at the school who keeps staring at Wendy.  She finds it all a bit strange and when she confronts him about it he won’t give her a proper reason.  One night, Wendy wakes up to find Finn sitting outside her bedroom window.  She lets him in and he starts to tell her why he has been following her around.  Finn tells Wendy that she is a changeling and that she isn’t really human either, she is a troll (although they now prefer the term Trylle).  It is Finn’s job to take Wendy back to her real family and to a place where only the trylle live.  When she arrives there she must try once again to find a place to belong.
I have to admit that when I was reading the first few chapters I didn’t think I was going to like this book at all.  It moved at a slow pace and didn’t really draw me into the story.  I found Wendy to be spoilt and immature and I didn’t like Finn either (he just seemed really creepy).  And when Finn told her that she was actually a troll, I just found that a bit too big a stretch of the imagination.
However when Wendy leaves her home to go and find her real family with Finn, the story improves a huge amount.  Wendy actually becomes a lot more likeable and I started to feel quite sorry for her.  She feels incredibly lonely in the world as her hopes of being part of a loving family where she feels she belongs are ruined once again.  She begins to mature and show that she often thinks of others rather than just thinking of herself.
Finn also becomes a lot more likeable (and a lot less creepy) once his role in the story becomes clear.  He is a tracker who hunts for the changelings and then brings them back to their real family.  Once he has reunited Wendy with her mother, he stays around for a while after in order to help her acclimate to her new life.  Although at times he can seem quite cold, this is just a professional facade he puts on whilst carrying out his duty to Wendy and her mother.  But there is also another side to him -  a side that shows he is intelligent, kind and cares about Wendy in a huge way.  After not liking Finn at all at the beginning of the book, he actually grew on me a lot and he is now one of my favourite male characters in a YA book.
The troll storyline also grew on me a lot as the story progressed.  When trolls were first mentioned at the beginning of the book, I immediately thought of big, green ugly creatures living under bridges and I didn’t like the idea of this at all.  However, once Wendy reaches her home it is explained that trolls are in fact mostly the same as humans but they have special abilities and an affinity with nature.  I actually really enjoyed this explanation and I felt that it gave the book a nice little twist when compared with other paranormal stories.
So, overall I really enjoyed reading Switched, and my message to anybody else who is reading it and is struggling with the beginning: please carry on as it does get a lot better!

Source – Received from author for review

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