I picked up SWITCHED by Amanda Hocking based entirely on the cover, which I can't deny is absolutely stunning. The publishers knew what they were doing on this series, because I completely didn't even realize that this was the same e-book series I had previously purchased on Amazon but had never quite gotten around to reading. I vaguely remembered the ugly greenish covers to the e-books which were quite off-putting, although I know we're always told not to judge a book by its cover, right? Well, obviously the publishers intended for us to do this very thing, because they clearly redesigned this one to catch the eye of the typical reader of trendy paranormal YA fiction. 
 After realizing that this trilogy is about a girl who learns that she is a troll, I was hoping for a new and refreshing twist to the typical format that these types of novels seem to follow. However, apart from the sheer fact that our main character Wendy is a troll, nothing here is really unique. We start out with a spunky, rebellious girl learning that she is somehow different from the rest of mainstream society. She meets Finn, our everyday YA love interest, who is classified as a tracker. In troll world (and note, troll is spelled "Trylle" throughout this novel. For the sake of keeping things real and readable, I will just call it what it is -- troll), all children are quickly swapped with babies from the human world, almost always with parents who are rich enough to provide trust funds and access to the finer things of life. In the later teenage years, a tracker goes back to find the troll and bring him or her back to troll world -- complete with the trust fund, of course. 
 Honestly, apart from being called "TROLL," though, there's really not much different here from being a vampire or angel or witch or whatever paranormal creature you've previously read in YA fiction. The trolls are stunningly beautiful and they have superpowers -- usually either the ability to read minds, move objects with the mind, or the ability to control the thoughts and actions of others. And, of course, there are troll royalties -- and yes, you guessed it ... Wendy is actually a troll princess. 
 So, our girl Wendy gets whisked away to troll-land after living a less than stellar life in the human world. Her original 'foster' mother was quite affluent; however, she immediately sensed that Wendy was not her birth child. When Wendy was 6, 'foster' mom tried to kill her, leaving Wendy to move in with her extremely overly protective brother and overly doting aunt, who apparently had access to great riches but decided not to ever actually use them for whatever reason. 
 When Wendy is discovered by her tracker Finn, of course she falls into a serious case of YA insta-love, and we really get no sense of why or how these two have so quickly decided that life never existed before they met. Then we see a lot of Wendy just trying to acclimate to her new princess life, with an uptight birth mother who seems every bit as cold as 'foster' mom, except with a lot more money and power, allegedly. 
 The writing in SWITCHED felt very young. Is the author young? I didn't even bother checking before reviewing this novel, but I'd guess her to be in her teens or early 20's at best, just judging on the word choice and flow of the story. It just felt awkward and forced at points in a way that felt a bit unrealistic. Also, the pacing of the story tended to drive me nuts in places. Things would be going along so slowly, then all of the sudden we've jumped to a future event with no warning. The weird passage of time continued to occur throughout the novel, leaving me with a feeling that I was really missing the detail and build-up that felt necessary to me as a reader. 
 It's not to say, though, that SWITCHED wasn't a fun read. I did enjoy the novel, despite the fact that nothing really stood out from any other YA paranormal story. And, I do think Hocking did a great job leading us into a stellar cliffhanger that will undoubtedly assure that I will at least be reading the next novel, even if I don't manage to finish the trilogy. 
 If you're a huge fan of paranormal YA fiction, definitely go ahead and pick this one up. It's as good as anything else in the genre, I suppose, so it's definitely worth a shot. But, I'd probably go ahead and just get the e-book version if you're fond of that medium. Something about it just reads like an e-book, even in paper format...