Date Started: 6/15/11
Date Finished: 6/16/11
One-Word Summary: um....
Obviously since I'm writing about this book I have to confess to reading it. Yikes! Well in the spirit of full disclosure I will admit the following: I read young adult books and often like them (yes, including the science fiction ones). Twilight, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games - loved them all. I get sucked into new series when they're cheap on Amazon (those wily publishers know what they're doing). So that's the back story on this one. Kind of embarrassing? Absolutely. Less so on the Kindle? Damn straight. At least no one on the subway can see me with this!
So our narrator, Wendy, is different. So much so that her mother tried to kill her on her sixth birthday. This much was divulged in the brief blurb about the book so I'm not giving much away. I will say that I thought more time would be spent on this life-altering episode but, not so much. That seems to be a theme in this book - rush, rush, rush. The plot chugs along leaving little time for character development. So this guy Finn is creepy and a jerk to Wendy BUT WAIT it turns out he is a tracker and has smoldering eyes and after about five seconds Wendy is in love with him. And as it turns out she is a troll - that's the secret behind her never fitting in, or liking to eat all of the processed food that the rest of us eat, or how she doesn't like to wear shoes. (Ok, at this point I was like "what? trolls? seriously?"). Her mother, Elora, is horrible and basically a scam artist since trolls employ the use of changelings to ensure survival of their people. They exchange their troll babies for human ones but only do so with super-rich families - so when the trolls come home they're the beneficiaries of giant trust funds. Wendy is understandably upset with this revelation.
The thing is, as a reader, I'm willing to go along with a lot. I've read The Mists of Avalon so clearly I can stick out some fantastic story-lines. The main problem with this book is the character development - there just isn't enough of it for me to buy it. The characters seem rushed, like I can't really believe any of the decisions they're making along the way. I don't buy Wendy loving Finn and that's a major problem as clearly this is the love backbone of the story. I'm obviously going to read all three books because (1) now I'm invested (which obviously the publishers counted on) and (2) they're $2.99 on my Kindle. But would I recommend them to anyone? Probably only teen girls (I will note that these are racier than either Twilight or The Hunger Games so be warned).
Oh and at the end Wendy leaves her troll palace to head home with Rhys (the baby she was exchanged for) -- so we have his reunion with his real brother, Matt to enjoy. At least until the next book starts...
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