The Switch

Beth O’Leary’s debut novel The Flatshare garnered the author international popularity and readers have been anxiously awaiting her next book. I can’t compare the two, but I can say that The Switch is a delightful read. In fact I finished it with a tear in my eye because The Switch has the sort of heartwarming ending that we all crave at times.

When Leena Cotton experiences a panic attack in the middle of an important meeting she expects she will be fired, instead her employer insists she takes two months leave. Lost without work as a buffer for her grief over her sister’s recent death from cancer, Leena decides to visit her beloved grandmother in the Yorkshire countryside.

Seventy-nine year old Eileen is ready to welcome her show more granddaughter with open arms. Truth be told the house has seemed empty since her husband ran away with a dance instructor, and candidates for overnight ‘company’ are thin on the ground in Hamleigh-in-Harksdale.

It takes just a few days for Leena to recognise that her grandmother also needs a change of scenery and so Leena impulsively proposes a switch. Leena will stay at Clearwater Cottage and take on Eileen’s tasks that includes organising the village May Day Festival, attending Neighbourhood Watch meetings, ferrying Bingo players, and watching over her mother, while Eileen will stay in Leena’s London share flat, explore the city and take advantage of the wider dating pool.

Unfolding from the alternating perspectives of Leena and Eileen, the two women initially struggle to find their feet in their new environments but the Cotton women are willing to take a few risks. I delighted in Eileen’s online dating adventures, her ability to befriend strangers, and her determination to establish the The Silver Shoreditchers Social Club. Eileen is smart, sassy and no-nonsense, and the kind of granny we all need. Leena is a little more fragile than her grandmother, still deeply grieving her sister’s death, her anger and guilt has been directed at her mother, and herself. Throwing herself into community affairs is a distraction but eventually she’s forced to face her anxiety, and some difficult truths about her life.

I loved the humour in The Switch which came from both the Cotton women and the supporting cast. Perhaps the elderly characters are a little stereotypical but they are thoroughly entertaining. The Switch doesn’t just offer laughs though, O’Leary touches on some sensitive issues including stress, grief, infidelity, loneliness and domestic violence. There is also a romance (or three) and Leena and Eileen ultimately prove to be strong and resilient women.

Charming, entertaining and uplifting I really enjoyed reading The Switch, I hope you do too. show less

When I read Beth O’Leary’s The Flatshare I fell in love with her writing style and her storytelling ability. I’m glad to see she continues to write feel-good novels with complex characters and satisfying character arcs. I tend to read more bleak genre fiction than fun real-world novels, so discovering a non-epic that I enjoy is a huge deal to me. The Switch further established the fact that I will read anything that O’Leary writes.

The premise of a grandmother and granddaughter who switch lives after huge life upheaval is great fun. While Eileen lives with her granddaughter's flatmates in London, Leena takes part in the small neighborhood watch council alongside the village busybodies. Eileen’s adventures in online dating and show more Leena’s determination to fill her grandmother’s shoes in the community often create laugh-out-loud scenarios. It was ironic that this book was set in 2020 (I think the year was mentioned once) since the novel is all about reconnecting with humans in person, with an emphasis on community for seniors. It’s either a nice parallel world for us to see while social distancing, or an exercise in the suspension of disbelief--for me it was the latter.

Although this novel is labeled as a romance, I’m not sure that it fits completely into that genre. Romance is a part of the plot, but it’s more focused on Eileen and Leena and the family, friendships, and community surrounding them. Romance is secondary to that. It reminds me of Sense and Sensibility by the way the author makes you think it’s about romance and then replaces it with personal growth and the power of female relationships. Psych! It’s not that it’s a bad thing (on the contrary!) but genre expectations mean that I was disappointed we didn’t get more from the love-interests who were pretty darn cute. Perhaps I’ll be more content when reading it a second time.

One aspect that I struggled with is that I didn’t connect with the characters like I did in The Flatshare. I’m not trying to compare the books, simply the feeling I had when reading them which are completely subjective. I’ve been wondering ever since I read the book why the characters don’t feel as real to me and the only answer I have is that this novel follows two almost entirely separate stories, while the previous one followed two people whose lives were intersecting. Perhaps the nature of the story means that there’s not as much time to connect? I don’t know.

I really enjoyed The Switch. It’s a feel good-novel that the majority of readers will be glad they picked up. I didn’t love it as much as I hoped to, but it was really good and I can see myself reading it again. It’s too cute to be just a one-time read.

*Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review show less

“Is it really an adventure if you don't make at least one ill-advised decision?”

I have to be honest, I would have preferred this entire book to be about Eileen. Just Eileen. She is a delight! That's not to say Leena wasn't a decent character, it's just that Eileen was far more interesting and I was much more invested in her development.

This was a book that surprised me. It wasn’t what I was expecting but ended up thrilling and delighting me. It took a while to get going but I loved the two main characters and it was wonderful to get to know them and see the positive impact they had on people around them whilst suffering themselves following the death of a close family member.

The grandmother and daughter decided to swap lives for two months and it was the best thing they could ever have done. Initially it felt like a romance, but it was more about friendship, dealing with grief and healing. These characters really grew on me as the books progressed meaning that you felt what they were feeling as they hit high and low points.

This worked wonderfully well as an show more audiobook and I would happily recommend this to anyone. Such a fun and engaging read, whilst also playing with your emotions. Can’t wait to pick up another Beth O’Leary book!

I gave this book 4 1/2 stars overall, and would like to say thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for providing a copy of this book to me for an open and honest review. show less

Leena Cotton is at a loss when she has a breakdown at a work meeting and is forced to take a 2 month sabbatical. Having recently lost her sister to cancer and become alienated from her mother in the process, she can't fathom what she will do with two months where she can't lose herself in work. Meanwhile, Leena's grandmother, Eileen, has been left by her philandering husband at the age of 79. She'd love to get back out there and meet a new man, but the dating pool in her small Yorkshire village is, well, puddle-sized.

When Leena discovers her grandmother's list of eligible bachelors in the village, all of whom have been found wanting, she decides her grandmother should try online dating. Unfortunately, the online dating landscape has show more little to offer. That is, unless Eileen goes to London. An idea is born, and suddenly Leena and Eileen are swapping lives. Leena will take over her grandmother's spot on the neighborhood watch committee and handle all of her projects, like planning the May Day festival, while Eileen will try out London life, moving into Leena's flat with Leena's roommates Fitz and Martha.

In alternating point of views, narrated perfectly by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Allison Steadman, the two women navigate the unknown, carving out places for themselves in their new surroundings. Each finds her new life challenging but rewarding, and each brings a little of herself to her new situation and leaves the lives of those around her better for it. Leena finds herself falling for a handsome country schoolteacher while Eileen has a fling with a West End theater actor only to find that maybe she's looking for love in the wrong place after all.

The book is filled with quirky, lovable, believable supporting characters, and the two Cotton women are admirable main characters. While definitely part of the romance genre, The Switch goes deeper to explore the need for genuine human connection among friends and even among strangers while also exploring themes of healing after loss. The Switch is a a lighthearted but by no means fluffy feel-good novel.

Highly recommended, especially on audio! show less

A combination of things I love in a story, young and elderly people interacting in a found family sort of way, a sprinkling of romance but the heroine has other stuff going on, too, like figuring out her career, family, and healing emotionally. If you’ve read and enjoyed The Christmas Dress by Courtney Cole, you’ll probably like this one, too, the stories differ, but I felt like there’s a similar vibe.

Sometimes with dual POV’s, you’ll favor one much more than the other, happily, I found both of these women very easy to like, and there’s also such an entertaining sense of community established on both sides of their home swap, the supporting characters are just as engaging as Leena and her grandmother.

As mentioned, there is show more romance in this book, but not enough that I’d qualify it as a romance novel, so if that’s what you’re craving this might disappoint. There are hints of romance building throughout and I did like the two resulting couples, however, if I had one minor complaint, it’s that I would have preferred that their other romantic relationships were out of the way a bit earlier so that getting together could have felt slightly less rushed in the end.

While this does have some serious stuff going on, adultery, an abusive marriage, grief, and some good dramatic conflict between Leena and her mom, this book is most often humorous and uplifting. show less

Wow. Another hit from O'Leary. I thought this was really good and I think did a great job of showing how grief affects people in different ways. You may initially not like the character of Leena for how she treats her mother, but I thought that the book did wonderfully of showing how a daughter is often the one that can hurt their mother their most, and even when they do so, still want their mother to fix it and make everything better. I loved the characters that we get to know when Leena switches with her grandmother and lives in Yorkshire.

"The Switch" follows 79 year old Eileen Cotton and her 20 something year old granddaughter Leena. Leena we find is not doing so well at her job at a PR company in London. Leena lost her younger show more sister almost a year ago and is now struggling to move on from the event. She's also angry at her mother for not doing more to prevent her sister's death. The two of them can barely speak without Leena being angry. Eileen is dealing with not only the lost of her granddaughter, but trying to keep her daughter from going under from all of her grief. Eileen's husband ran off with a dance instructor and now she's faced with also trying to date again. When Leena comes to visit, the two women realize that maybe the best thing for them would be to switch lives for about 2 months while Leena is on sabbatical. Leena can start repairing things with her mother, and fill in for her grandmother. And Eileen can go off and have an adventure in London.

Both of these women lives get shook up by the switch and it was fantastic. Eileen lives with Leena's roommates and even hangs out with her best friend at work. Eileen is a good meddler I found. Leena is a bit harder to take. She gets competitive with a local guy in the village and just generally acts like a know it all and doesn't really do much with her mother. At first. And then Leena gets her eyes opened and starts to realize that she's not the only one dealing with a lot of things unsaid.

I loved the other characters we get to know in this one. Bee, Fitz, and the Neighbourhood Watch Committee characters were great. I could have read about all of them all day.

The writing I thought was fantastic and the flow shifting between Leena and Eileen worked out very well.

The settings of a small village in Yorkshire and urban London came alive to me in this one. I loved both women's initial impressions of the places they "switched" to and how that came to change over time.

The ending I thought was pitch perfect. show less