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 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 ( )

The Switch is a chick-lit fiction by English author Beth O’Leary. It stars Leena Cotton and her grandmother Eileen who decide to swap lives for a break. Leena moves out of her London flat after being sent on stress leave from work and into the tiny Yorkshire village of Hamleigh-in-Harksdale. 79-year-old Eileen has recently decided to start dating several years after her husband left her for the dance instructor only to find there are fairly slim pickings in her village. She embarks on life in London with gusto while Leena takes on her responsibilities with the Neighbourhood Watch group, and planning for the May Fair event. Leena meets a quirky group of neighbours, including the crusty old Arnold Macintyre and his handsome stepson Jackson. Leena finds her dynamic grandmother has left her big shoes to fill, and also struggles to repair her damaged relationship with her mother and to process her grief over the loss of her sister.

This was a light, fun read. Eileen was a very engaging character and made the story enjoyable. ( )

A combination of things I love in a story, young and elderly people interracting 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 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. ( )

This was a fun book. I enjoyed that the author brought an older person (aged 79) into the life of a younger person (aged 29) - grandmother and grandchild.

The Switch is a lighthearted novel where grandmother has just been dumped and granddaughter has just royally flubbed a work presentation. Both are suffering from grief (loss of grandchild/sibling). The two decide to switch lives, taking the elder Eileen to live in London with the younger Eileen’s (“Lena”) flatmates. Lena moves into her grandmother’s home and steps into her grandmother’s life.

Through some fun twists and turns (grandma gets on a dating site and Lena falls for the local primary school teacher) the story weaves in and out of the lives the two now lead. And without much strife, all the hiccups and loose ends are tied into a tidy bow. And yes, they all live, as expected, happily ever after. I’m not generally a huge fan of this type of “as predicted” trope, but in this case, I thoroughly enjoyed, The Switch. ( )

Poorly plotted (too slow to get off the ground) and less amusing compared to The Flatshare. The inclusion of elderly protagonists was well done. The MC, Eileen (age 79), made the novel worth wading through the overly-detailed slow run up to moving the story forward. ( )