Book Review: Torn by Amanda Hocking (spoilers for Switched)

Welcome back to Musings of an Arthritic Artist! Today I'm going to be doing a book review. This review is for Torn by Amanda Hocking, the second book in the Trylle trilogy.

This review will be mostly spoiler-free for this installment, however, because it is a sequel, there will be spoilers for the first book in this series. If you haven't read the first book and wish to, I wouldn't recommend reading this review.

Let's get into the review!

This book begins right where the last one begins with Rhys and Wendy traveling to her old house so Rhys can meet his blood brother. The plot of these books is really simple, but they're light and fun. This book focuses more on the politics of the Trylle, which was an enjoyable experience. A lot of the politics made sense, even if I didn't agree with them. 

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I did like the introduction of Loki. In the first book, I kind of shipped Wendy and Finn, however it was kind of hard to fully be on board with them, solely because Finn seemed so.....closed off, and not in the "I have a past I don't like talking about, please don't ask me" way. In the "I'm a tracker so I must always act professional, while also coming across as a callous jerk" way. That was just the vibe I got from him. 

For having to always act 'professional,' there were many times in the first two books where Finn just makes situations worse, such as during the school dance in the first book where--despite needing to protect Wendy--he insults her. Yes, Finn. Very professional behavior considering she doesn't want to be around you anymore. 

In this book Finn was a little better. I still liked him as a character, I just didn't think he and Wendy fully fit. I had assumed that Finn was going to be the only love interest in this series, so I tried to climb aboard the shipping train for them. However, once Loki was introduced, that slightly went out the window. Loki seemed to genuinely care about Wendy's well-being, while also just being a nice guy (the second of which Finn only sometimes succeeds in).

There's a non-love triangle love triangle in this book. Technically, there is one, solely because Wendy likes both Finn and Loki, however, due to Finn's duty as a tracker and all that, it's kind of clear that this isn't a true love triangle, just because it seems like only one outcome can come out of it.

When I read this, I wasn't sure to ship Finn or Loki with Wendy, though I leaned more toward Loki. My only problem while reading this book was the name association. Once I see a name associated with a certain character I can't disassociate myself from that character (that was one reason I had to rename one of my characters whose name had been Kalel; I couldn't stop confusing him with Superman). 

Loki was described as having blond hair, which is fine, however because of the association with Norse mythology and Marvel, I couldn't form a detailed picture of him in my head. I picture him as having straight, long blond hair, but I don't know if this was a description given in the book or not.

I like Wendy, especially for a YA paranormal romance protagonist. She was a refreshing character to read about. Sure she was occasionally be annoying, but I wasn't annoyed with her every chapter, which is definitely a good thing in my book. 

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I wouldn't say this one was better than the first, but I wouldn't say it was worse either. They were almost equal to me. I didn't see the big plot twist coming, which was fun and unexpected.

I honestly don't have much to say about this book. It was enjoyable. I ended up giving it a 4 out of 5 stars on my Goodreads. It isn't great, but it isn't awful either. 

That's it for this review! I hope you enjoyed it! 

I'm sorry if this post doesn't read as well as most of my other ones. I read this book pre-COVID (January 2020), so my timeline and remembrance of it is pretty flawed, all things considered, so the thoughts might not be as coherent as they could be.

See you Thursday, 

Lexi K🖌