Switch by A.S. King

 Switch by A.S. King is a very different, quite unusual, and unique book that takes some time to get your head around and as a result, I believe requires a bit of a different book review. Who is this book about? This is one of the easier questions; this book is about Truda Becker who is a 16-year-old teenage girl. What is this book about? Well, I would say there are three plots to this story; one, how time has stopped, two, how Truda is great at Javelin, and three how her house is an assortment of boxes due to family conflict.

Let me explain in more detail. The main plot of the book is about how time has stopped for everyone. No one knows why the time has stopped but things mostly carry on as usual and people start to rely on the 'N3WATCH' website which claims to have worked out what the time is. Regardless, this book sees Truda questioning why the time has stopped and how we can make time start again.

The plot then expands further on Truda when she starts Javelin. Truda and everyone around her quickly notices she is a very special talented young girl who can naturally throw the javelin further than any other human being and so can break world records. This then leads to extra attention and media attention which Truda is not a big fan of and allegations of how she may be using performance-enhancing drugs.

The plot then finally expands on Truda's family and how her mother had to leave Tru and her brother with their father and how their father had to build lots of wooden boxes in and around the house to live in. This is all due to conflict with Truda's (older) sister who seems to have pulled the family apart.

It is great watching all the characters throughout the book problem-solve via sport, Psychology classes, and family meetings to eventually see everything return back to normal by the end of the book. It is also interesting to follow Truda around and experience her emotions. This is indeed a book which deals with lots of emotions, loneliness, isolation and so much more which is not only familiar to the characters in the book but also to many people from the COVID-19 lockdowns.

As I said, this is a very weird book which I would say uses an experimental format for the book. At first, it took me a while to get my head around the format and context of the book but as I read more of the book I started understanding more of the plot and more about the characters of the book. This is definitely a type of book you would not have seen before.

Altogether, I rate this book three stars because yes it is a good book however it is quite hard to get your head around this book and some of the ideas and the plot presented in this book, in my opinion, are a bit jumbled up. I do really encourage you all to read this book yourself and see what you think of the plot and formatting. I would like to thank NetGalley and Text Publishing for providing me with an advanced reader copy of this book in return for an honest review. Thank you, I very much enjoyed reading the book.