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A review by thebookmouse
Switch by A.S. King
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
For the longest time A.S. King has been the author I have been most anticipated to read from. I have never read a book written by her, until now, but I have every single one on my TBR. I don't know why I chose to read this one first, but I think part of it was that it is her most recent and she has written so many it's intimidating on knowing where to start.
Switch is the story of Tru, a young girl living with her father and brother in a house with a switch. No-one knows what it does, just that it shouldn't be touched. Inside her house, her father keeps building bigger and bigger boxes around this switch to keep it protected, so that their house has become a maze, and Tru lives in box number 7. Outside of this the world is stuck in a fold in time, so that it has been the same day, year, minute since it stopped. Artificial time is now being marked on a website someone created called N3WCLOCK.com.
Weird right? Yes. This much I understood, but the story is so abstract it was hard to make sense of what was going on. It was written in a very strange way that didn't quite feel like a novel, but also didn't feel like poetry - something in between. It made me feel very disconnected from the story, I couldn't gain any insight, or develop any feelings about these characters because everything was so choppy.
I like the idea's she was trying to convey about time, about how everyone is so determined to meet deadlines and feeling so much pressure on time that they forget to live and enjoy themselves, but outside of this, I didn't love it.
I will still work through my A. S. King tbr and hopefully will adore some (if not all) of the others. This one just did not do it for me.
Thank you to A.S. King, the publishers and NetGalley for giving me a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.
Switch is the story of Tru, a young girl living with her father and brother in a house with a switch. No-one knows what it does, just that it shouldn't be touched. Inside her house, her father keeps building bigger and bigger boxes around this switch to keep it protected, so that their house has become a maze, and Tru lives in box number 7. Outside of this the world is stuck in a fold in time, so that it has been the same day, year, minute since it stopped. Artificial time is now being marked on a website someone created called N3WCLOCK.com.
Weird right? Yes. This much I understood, but the story is so abstract it was hard to make sense of what was going on. It was written in a very strange way that didn't quite feel like a novel, but also didn't feel like poetry - something in between. It made me feel very disconnected from the story, I couldn't gain any insight, or develop any feelings about these characters because everything was so choppy.
I like the idea's she was trying to convey about time, about how everyone is so determined to meet deadlines and feeling so much pressure on time that they forget to live and enjoy themselves, but outside of this, I didn't love it.
I will still work through my A. S. King tbr and hopefully will adore some (if not all) of the others. This one just did not do it for me.
Thank you to A.S. King, the publishers and NetGalley for giving me a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.
Content Warnings
Minor: Child abuse and Pedophilia