DNF Review: The Switch by Dawn Pendleton and Andrea Heltsley

The Switch

Author: Dawn Pendleton, Andrea Heltsley

Goodreads

Honor and Faith haven’t switched places since they were kids. When Honor begs her twin sister to go on a date with her boyfriend, Cameron, Faith reluctantly agrees. The problem is that she lets things go too far. Now Honor and Cameron have broken up and he won’t stop calling Faith, claiming he felt something more for her. The scary thing is, Faith felt it too. The problem, however, is the one rule that sisters and best friends abide by: don’t date their ex's.

Honor has her own problems. Breaking it off with Cameron was the right thing to do, but now his best friend, Parker, won’t leave her alone. The more time they spend together, the more Honor starts to heal. Suddenly, Honor sees Parker as more than just a friend who cares – and she wants more.

Neither sister wants to complicate things further and cross those boundaries, but they can’t stop their emotions for the guys in their lives. Turns out, the switch is the one thing that has changed them forever.

**WARNING: Spoilers and ranting ahead. You have been warned**

I really wanted to like this one. I really did. I got through 81% of it in just 2 hours and after that I just couldn't read anymore. The storyline and the characters seemed to annoy and frustrate me more than anything else and the only scenes I actually did enjoy reading were the steamy ones where the girls were making out with their guys, if that tells you anything. After reading that much of the book you would think I'd feel some kind of connection with at least one of the characters but I didn't. Even the relationships in the story didn't seem real to me. They were all surface level and never dug deeper than that.

The Switch starts off with sisters Faith and Honor at a ballgame where Faith is cheerleading and Honor is sitting in the stands watching her boyfriend Cameron play, while Faith admires him from the sidelines. The scene is incredibly short and suddenly switches to the girls at a party, then again switches to them being at home within a matter of a few pages. The whole scene feels rushed, and the dialogue unrealistic. Plus, you don't really get a sense of who they are before you're thrust into the main storyline which is Honor convincing Faith to go on her anniversary date instead, and Faith fighting her feelings for him for the biggest portion of the book. You don't get any back stories of them having switched places with one another before this scene; it just tells you that they have. This really bothered me. Not just the fact that Honor made her sister do that, but the fact that she gets mad at her after the date is over because she kissed her boyfriend. Which we later find out that he knew all along that it was Faith, but kissed her anyways because he didn't think he'd get another chance. And then Cameron's best friend decides that he wants to be with Honor and takes her out THE VERY NEXT DAY. Is this a joke???

The entire book feels so rushed and shallow, never diving below surface level, and the dialogue is subpar.

Let me elaborate...

Faith likes to use the words "gah" and "grr" frequently. She obsesses over her sisters boyfriend before even going on the date with him: "In truth, I thought Cam was cute. He was on my never-to-date list though. Honor dating him sealed that fate. He liked my sister and not me anyways. It was just a pipedream."

And this scene with their mother was incredibly unrealistic:

"Has Honor been drinking again?"

"Well, maybe. We left because she got in a fight with Cam again. I pulled her out before she could do anything stupid."

"You girls are so much trouble sometimes. The boys are still young so I don't woory about them as much. Every time you leave the house, I worry about you two. I'm a mom, it's just hard to let go of my precious twin girls."

Gag. Mom was being sentimental tonight. I hated when she was in this kind of mood Next it was going to be poor, pitiful Faith. I could practically hear the words before she said them.

"I really wish you would find a boyfriend to spend some time with. I see Honor going out with Cameron and doing things that you should get to experience too. You just need to find someone worthy of your time. I'm sure there has to be someone at school," she prodded.

"I'm sorry, Mom, but there's on one available to date that I like. Be patient, I'll find a guy when it's my time. I'm not worried about it."

Seriously??? What mother responds to hearing her daughter has been drinking with "you girls are so much trouble sometimes"??? That scene was so incredibly irritating.

The dialogue was constantly all over the place. And incredibly short. None of it ever felt sincere and too many nonrealistic events kept happening, such as Faith wrecking into a guys car and him being completely fine with it and then him asking her out in the next sentence. Stuff like that happened more than once. The whole captain of the cheerleading squad "mean girls" approach with Leila bulling Faith and Honor completely failed to spark anything in me but a feeling of annoyance because it was NOT done well. And their way of taking care of her bullying would NOT have gotten them in the kind of trouble with the school that it did had it been reality.

Not to mention that scenes that happened between Honor and Faith were repeated all throughout the book and were written exactly the same. For example:

Honor's POV

"Are we going to talk?" I asked her."
Faith turned to look at me and rolled her eyes as she shook her head. She looked pointedly at my hand on her arm and then back at me. I yanked my hand back. Was she seriously giving me this much attitude? She made a sound that was part sigh, part annoyed grunt. She swung open the driver's door, grabbed her bags, and got out, walking into school without so much as a glance back at me.

Faith's POV

"Are we going to talk?" she asked me. I turned to look at her, rolled my eyes, and shook my head. I looked pointed at her hand on my arm and then back at her. She yanked her hand back. I swung open the driver's door, grabbed my bags, and got out, walking into school without as much as a glance back.

Please tell me they could've at least TRIED to describe the scenes better. But they're nearly identical. WORD FOR WORD. And this happens more than once, mind you.

I really felt like The Switch had so much potential from the premise, but all it did was let me down and I just could not bring myself to finish the story. I am terribly sorry for the ranty, spoilery review and redundancy, but this was all I had in me for this one.


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