Poor Truda is Trapped, by a Force Bigger than Time

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"Switch" introduces us to Truda, a high school student who is at times a javelin or living in an ever-growing wooden box next to a mysterious switch she can't really reach in her suburban tract home, which is not really a home because as far as Truda can tell it doesn't always exist because time is at a standstill and food is running out.

Yeah, Truda's adolescent mind is all over the place, moving in and out of frequently competitive or at least contradictory realities that accommodate a mother who has left home, a sister who disappeared (but still goes to college) and a father who may or may not be abusive (he built the wooden boxes with the switches in which his children reside). She has friends, most of whom she can trust, but who apparently have also been forced to adjust to unusual environments (at least to us, not necessarily to them) and situations, if of course we are to trust any of Truda's narration.

There is a manic logic to the various environments that Truda conjures, some of which can turn on a dime and be something they are not. The narration is designed to be disturbing, frustrating (oh God is it frustrating!), bizarre, yet ultimately revelatory as the story progresses.

It would be okay to ask "What the Heck is Going on Here" because this seems to all be part of Truda's attempts to alienate, terrify and perhaps even punish a reader, all in service to share, understand and escape from things that impact her down to her innermost core. Who knows--Truda may not be the ultimate dishonest narrator--it all could be true. But I don't know if I (capital I, bold face) could remain sane by the time I got to the end.