caile
in
canonrants
Switched, by Amanda Hocking **SPOILERS**
The lead is a bad-tempered teen girl who doesn't seem to have any friends or to care very much about anyone. There's a creepy hot guy who stares at her constantly, runs hot and cold and turns up outside her bedroom window at night. Then he tells her she's a magical creature, a changeling who was switched with a human baby. I thought she was going to be a fairie, but she's a... troll. No, sorry, a Trylle! Ahahaha.
Anyway, instead of taking her to a cave and teaching her how to kill things with a club and to eat lichen and avoid sunlight, he takes her to the troll compound in Minnesota. Ha! Where she finds out that she is a Princess. Who needs to learn about manners and get made over for a ball. What is this, Twilight meets the Princess Diaries? She even has rebellious hair. At least the troll thing isn't everywhere like vampires are. But apparently being a troll means having magical powers and being super pretty, so... how is this different from being a fairie?
There's a whole underlying plot about how the troll's magical powers are fading away, and how they have really strict rules about who can marry who as a result, in order to keep the bloodlines pure. I don't know if this is a metaphor for cultural assimilation, or marriage segregation laws, or what.
For no apparent reason, Chickie and Hot Guy fall for each other, but he's a lower social caste than her, so make-out sessions are Forbidden! People deliberately don't tell her things in order to drive the plot. Her real mom is an Ice Queen (whose name is Elora. Elora Danan? She bears the mark! I don't know why I find this so funny.) At the ball, a rival troll tribe attacks and is repulsed, setting readers up for another 16 books in the series! (Why do YA fantasy romance series' go on forever? I am looking at you, House of Night. I just want things to wrap up sometime!)
I am hoping/predicting that the next book will include:
a) the young trolls working together to topple to pointless aristocracy,
b) the discovery of hybrid vigour, and/or
c) Chickie adding the other two hot guys in Troll Town to her harem. It's what Anita Blake would do! (Okay, so most things about the Anita Blake books sucked, but I always admired her willingness to just start up relationships with more and more men. Piles of them!)
So this is a rant but I do have to admit I laughed every time I read the word Trylle. So there was that.
Anyway, instead of taking her to a cave and teaching her how to kill things with a club and to eat lichen and avoid sunlight, he takes her to the troll compound in Minnesota. Ha! Where she finds out that she is a Princess. Who needs to learn about manners and get made over for a ball. What is this, Twilight meets the Princess Diaries? She even has rebellious hair. At least the troll thing isn't everywhere like vampires are. But apparently being a troll means having magical powers and being super pretty, so... how is this different from being a fairie?
There's a whole underlying plot about how the troll's magical powers are fading away, and how they have really strict rules about who can marry who as a result, in order to keep the bloodlines pure. I don't know if this is a metaphor for cultural assimilation, or marriage segregation laws, or what.
For no apparent reason, Chickie and Hot Guy fall for each other, but he's a lower social caste than her, so make-out sessions are Forbidden! People deliberately don't tell her things in order to drive the plot. Her real mom is an Ice Queen (whose name is Elora. Elora Danan? She bears the mark! I don't know why I find this so funny.) At the ball, a rival troll tribe attacks and is repulsed, setting readers up for another 16 books in the series! (Why do YA fantasy romance series' go on forever? I am looking at you, House of Night. I just want things to wrap up sometime!)
I am hoping/predicting that the next book will include:
a) the young trolls working together to topple to pointless aristocracy,
b) the discovery of hybrid vigour, and/or
c) Chickie adding the other two hot guys in Troll Town to her harem. It's what Anita Blake would do! (Okay, so most things about the Anita Blake books sucked, but I always admired her willingness to just start up relationships with more and more men. Piles of them!)
So this is a rant but I do have to admit I laughed every time I read the word Trylle. So there was that.