I like the concept here and think the story would make a good movie series. I've since bought the other three books in the series, and it is a popular check-out in my high school classroom library.

Ethan discovers he is part of an ancient race of humans called Changers, destined to switch bodies four times before discovering which is his true identity, and he becomes a short girl named Drew, but luckily Drew still knows how to play the drums ( )

Honestly, I enjoyed this more than I expected. The slang is a but cheesy at times, which is hard to avoid as adults writing as teens, but otherwise, a good read! ( )

Honestly, I enjoyed this more than I expected. The slang is a but cheesy at times, which is hard to avoid as adults writing as teens, but otherwise, a good read! ( )

Many thanks to Hachette for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This in no way impacted my views.

I went into Changers with some presumptions about the book; I thought I knew what to expect, what to anticipate. However, the way the unique concept of this book was presented worked pretty well to battle these preconceptions – though some still remained. Generally speaking, it’s safe to say that I enjoyed this, but my only problem was that some things didn’t quite work out with this story. The concept behind the plot was an attention-grabber, for sure, and the characters were interesting enough to read about, but the way the world was set up seemed jumbled up and vague to me. The book left me very curious and I do hope some of my questions will be answered in the second book.

One thing that’s undeniable about this book is that it’s very captivating; it’ll keep you turning pages until the very end. What makes it such a page-turner is the humor. At the beginning, I thought it was too forced and did not find it funny at all, but as the story progressed and Ethan’s Drew’s character developed and grew, the wit did too. The writing style of the book also helped with this, it was conversational and served to portray the protagonist’s personality really well.

There are many notions that the book tried to tackle, namely gender fluidity and accepting who you are. I’m no expert, but the former wasn’t exactly portrayed accurately. The book tried – which is the keyword here – to push the boundaries between genders but all it ended up doing was showing us a 2D model of the characters. It was unrealistic how fast Drew forgot what it was like to be a boy and jumped into the role of being a girl. I mean, what happened to these 14 years of being a boy? How did he start to view the world in terms of being a girl in just a few months? To say the least, it was unrealistic and very disconcerting. It also didn’t help that the protagonist wasn’t very relatable, so I wasn’t able to sympathize very much. Everything just sort of fell flat. Despite all that, there is something I really liked – the fluid sexuality. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be a love triangle or what, but Drew falls in love with a Changer boy who used to be a girl AND there also seem to be feelings between Drew and her girl best friend. I totally loved the dynamic of that and am disappointed to see the characters go. Maybe they’ll reappear in the second installment? It’s definitely enough to keep me reading.

I mentioned previously that I wasn’t a fan of the way the world was set up. Nothing was explained properly and when an effort was made to explain things, it was just a confusing jumble of information dumping and vague statements. For example, what’s the role of Changers? “The Changer race is the last hope for the human race on the whole to reverse the moral devolution that has overcome it. Changers believe more Changers equals more empathy on planet Earth. And that only through empathy will the human race survive.” Say what? The whole story is riddled with vague, elusive statements like that. The world was never fleshed out properly, either, leading to a ton of questions about it that haven’t been answered.

If you’re looking for an interesting read with no depth to it, then this is your book. It had potential, but failed to fulfill it. This had more plot holes than the ozone layer and a world that wasn’t fleshed out properly. Despite all that, the book featured moral qualms such as accepting yourself and fluid sexuality, handling them pretty well, while failing to appropriately address the part about gender. It was a page-turner, alright, with a humorous protagonist and a chatty, conversational writing style. Many questions were left unanswered, but I still do have hope for the second installment.

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