Trading Faces

Trading Faces by Ann Herrick
4/5 stars
Books We Love, 2012
110 pages
YA Contemporary Paranormal

Source: Received a review copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.

I saw this book featured on some Book Hauls and was pleased to receive a review request from the author, allowing me the chance to partake in a switching places (or rather trading faces) story. As the time grew near for me to read it though, I became nervous wondering how does one distinguish a story that has been told many times?

Well, in the case of Herrick, it is by injecting a huge amount of personality into the characters, creating two fully formed awesome young women who learn some valuable lessons when they mysteriously change lives one day. On the one hand, we have Darcy, plain, longing for popularity and to kiss the cute boy while dealing with her lame parents. On the other hand, we have Cybil, beautiful new girl in school who has astutely latched on to what makes you popular but who sometimes longs to escape the attention and especially her overbearing mother and essentially absentee father. Voila, the girls switch! Of course Darcy is thrilled to be pretty and eagerly embraces her new role while Cybil is appalled at being so anonymous. An added complication is that Darcy's brother has a crush on Cybil, something that Darcy-as-Cybil does nothing to stop.

As I said above, the big lure of this book was the personality and fun. The book alternates between both girls' perspectives (with additional comments from a few other people) and it just zipped along, with the girls learning valuable lessons about appearance, personality, family, and real friendship. I can't pick any one moment as a real standout because it was all so fun, just a great ride for an afternoon read. Okay, that's kind of a lie. I did like when the girls volunteer to help displaced women get makeovers-they were learning, having fun, and doing good-a trifecta of good stuff!

Overall: I would definitely recommend this for people who like switching places as well as for those who like contemporaries since, except for the switch, that's what this is. I would also recommend this for younger teens looking for good life lessons.