An easy beach read - won't win any prizes but likeable characters and an easy to follow plot. Didn't enjoy it as much as the author's previous book

After reading The Flatshare, I knew that I wanted to read more from Beth O'Leary. The Switch has bumped her up to my list of authors whose books I will automatically buy without even bothering to read the synopsis.

The Switch is a beautifully written story about two women, grandmother Eileen and granddaughter Leena (a nickname for Eileen), who are both stuck in their lives after the death of Carla, Leena's sister. After Leena is sent on a forced sabbatical by her boss, they decide to switch places for a few weeks: Eileen will move to London in pursuit of adventure and a second chance at love, and Leena moves to a tiny village in the Yorkshire Dales in pursuit of rest and a chance to fix her relationship with her mother Marian. Throw in trendy flatmates, online dating at 79, nosy neighbours and village committee meetings, and you end up with both women feeling like the other Eileen left some pretty big shoes to fill.

Despite the grief that's present throughout the book, this was a funny and charming story about family and community. The narrative switches between Eileen and Leena with every chapter, which means you constantly get a different way of looking at events and characters. This helps to make the setting and the characters feel more realistic, more alive.

This was a quick and easy read, despite the two narrators and the two very different settings. Eileen and Leena's journeys may have been a little bit predictable, but Beth O'Leary writes her characters with such nuance and care and love, you tend to forgive the lack of absolutely shocking plot twists.

When overachiever Leena Cotton is ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, she escapes to her grandmother Eileen's house for some overdue rest. Eileen is newly single and about to turn eighty. She'd like a second chance at love, but her tiny Yorkshire village doesn't offer many eligible gentlemen. As both women start to explore themselves (and others) they will have to question everything they know to be true to them.

I am such a big fan of Beth O'Leary's writing style. It is so easy to read, with humour and lightness. While I did enjoy The Flatshare more than The Switch, it was a still a really lovely story. I loved watching both Eileen and Leena grow. Despite being years apart, they both had amazing adventures and growth throughout the story. If you're looking for a lovely, uplifting story, than I cannot recommend this enough!

This book is like sinking into a marshmallow cloud. I read it in one sitting. Told from the perspective of Eileen and Leena her granddaughter it covers a multitude of subjects from love ,grief,and age. With two very strong women as lead characters it romps along at a steady pace. Lots of laugh out loud moments as well as tears. I thought the Flatshare was good but this is even better.

A book to make you believe in relationships being the meaning of it all. I warmed to both "Eileens" and enjoyed the quirky premise, however unlikely it is that it could happen in real life! I loved the notion that struggling to deal with grief doesn't make us 'messed up...' it makes us entirely normal. A happy, life affirming read that made me smile at strangers in the street because we're all people, in this life together.

I really enjoy Beth O'Leary's meringue-light, sardonically funny writing style, but I didn't love this quite as much as The Flatshare. The thing about The Flatshare was that it felt like an entirely up-to-date romance, touching on the housing crisis and gaslighting, whereas The Switch didn't feel quite as fresh and original, despite the adorable characters. There have been a lot of books recently in which drifting young people make friends with an OAP and learn a life lesson and this felt very similar to a lot of those, although much better written than most.

I adored Beth O'Leary's first book, The Flatshare, since it was original and entertaining, so I was super hyped to read The Switch. Unfortunately I was quite disappointed, as it was very predictable, slow and both main characters were awful.

For majority of this book, literally nothing happens. Leena basically goes to village meetings, and deals with village and family drama, while Eileen’s in the city talking to men off a dating website.

I was expecting a lot more romance in this, but there’s barely any. Leena has a neglectful boyfriend for nearly 90% of this boo𝗄, and is also interested in a single dad from the village. They get together in the last 3%, with pretty much no development between them.

One thing I did love was Arnold. He was meant to be the villages grumpy old man but he was such a sweetheart!

New review- The Switch by Beth O’Leary
Eileen and Leena Cotton are grandmother and granddaughter. Leena is a Highflyer in a large company in London and is going through a meltdown following the death of her sister from cancer. So both decide to swap homes to find themselves again. Leena Swaps her technology with her gran taking her her old basic ancient Nokia in their New lives they both begin to live. Eileen discovers online dating whilst Leena discovers other people their lives issues and fresh air and open space learning to live again.

The quirkinesses of life and people makes you laugh and cry in equal measure - Beautiful read recommend this book to all. Fantastic book all round ! Loved it.

I loved Beth’s first book and was really excited to get an arc of her new one. It did not disappoint. An interesting premise with Leena and her grandmother Eileen temporarily ‘life swapping’ . I loved both lead characters and that it was a story told from the perspective of two different generations which you don’t often get in romance. Funny, warm and charming throughout. A really good read all round.

Thank you to Netgalley and Quercus for granting my wish to review this book.

Beth O'Leary has done it again. This book is every bit as spectacularly enjoyable as her first, The Flatshare, and I devoured every word of it.
Leena and her grandmother Eileen are both struggling with finding where they need to be after the death of Leena's sister, Eileen's granddaughter. When Leena is told to take a few months of work, no arguments, she's at a loss for what to do. Speaking to her grandma, she comes up with the madcap idea that they swap places for their two months. So they do. Leena relocates to Eileen's sleepy country village in Yorkshire, while Eileen moves into a trendy flat in London, to hit the online dating scene and take the capital by storm.
I absolutely loved this book. It was delightfully written, with two great main characters, and a wonderful cast of supporting characters also. Leena and Eileen both have some things to sort out, and as they explore their new lives, they get into all kinds of fun scrapes and scandals. It was really refreshing to read a book with an older character who's not lost her interest in sex, romance, and dating, and Eileen's forthright manner and Yorkshire ways make her experience in London unlike any other. Starting a social club for other lonely silver surfers in the shared area of Leena's building is maybe slightly unrealistic, but utterly heartwarming, and the neighbours that Eileen meets are delightfully diverse. I particularly liked the sole owner of a vehicle in the building, who offered some wonderful comic relief.
For Leena, in Yorkshire, this time is about finding herself, coming to terms with her terrible loss, and reconnecting with her mother. And if there's a handsome primary school teacher about, well, that can't be too much of a problem either.
What I particularly loved about this book was Leena's experience of dealing with her grief about her sister. Every time I read a paragraph which described their relationship and their final days together, my eyes started to burn and my throat welled up. Beth O'Leary writes so delicately, I was filled with compassion and love for my own sisters. But it never felt maudlin or overdone, just perfectly handled, giving us an insight into Leena's grief and her process of dealing with it.
There was so much to love in this book, both laughter and tears, and honestly I don't know how to review it all. I heartily, thoroughly recommend The Switch, and can't wait to see what Beth O'Leary does next.

What a heartwarming book! Having read and loved The Flatshare I was very excited to get into this and it certainly did not disappoint - more than just another romance, O'Leary has created another fun, entertaining and ultimately uplifting read.

The story of a grandmother and granddaughter, Eileen and Leena, who swap homes for 8 weeks and navigate aspects of each others lives while they try and re-find themselves, it is a story of family, grief, friendships and relationships that draws you in, sweeps you along and wraps you up nicely. Told from alternate perspectives, the characters are well drawn and it is refreshing to have an older woman who is determined to embrace life as such a central character, And it is not just the two main characters who come to life - the other characters all have a part to play and you care about them too. It is not all light and fluffy though - it also deals with some big issues that stop it becoming overly saccharine, though those do not get in the way of its overall charm and the feel-good nature of the book

Thank you to Netgalley and Quercus for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review..

When I requested an ARC of The Switch I thought it had the potential to be brilliant or a total disaster... I loved the author's first book and I was happy to find here some the things that I enjoyed so much in The Flatshare. Mixing a heavily emotional story with lighter and often funny topics is a good choice here, and I think both are done skilfully. My problem is that at some point the lighter topics took over the more emotional (and in my opinion more interesting) ones and the book lost a lot of its power in the second half. I loved seeing the different grieving processes of all the Cotton women but at some point the book started to focus almost exclusively on Eileen and Leena's love lives, and there were so many background stories going on that I got a bit lost. My second issue is that all stories are resolved too perfectly to feel real - I understand the value of a feel-good story, but the ending was downright cheesy and over-the-top.

So the result is far from a disaster, but not perfect either. Still, this is a really good choice for a heartwarming read when in need of an uplifting book with a heavy side of romance.

Absolutely beautiful! I wasn't sure Beth's new novel could beat The Flatshare but this was absolutely wonderful. Two characters, two generations, two stories but both were engaging and I loved them equally. This will certainly be a bestseller!
The Switch is a beautiful, heartwarming novel about the power of change, believing in yourself and how age is just a number!

Tje Switch was every bit as enjoyable as The Flat Share! The characters leapt from the pages and I ended up reading in one sitting!

The Switch is a light hearted enjoyable read. The characters are simple, entertaining and very believable. I absolutely loved the character of Eileen- but unfortunately to a point where I became somewhat uninterested in what Leena was up to because I wanted to get back to Eileen. The storyline is quite obvious and it's clear where it's headed, buy the road you follow to get there is quirky and entertaining.

Thanks to NetGalley for an early copy of this book for review.

Usually when I get a book on NetGalley, I try to read it close to the release date, so I can remember and talk about it when it comes out. But I just couldn’t resist. I wanted so desperately to jump back into Beth O’Leary’s writing and, let’s be honest, of course I’ll read it again in April.

The Switch tells the story of Leena and Eileen, a granddaughter-grandmother pair, who switch lives for two months for a bit of a shakeup to their usual lives. Leena is forced from work after a huge mistake, caused by overworking and ignoring her sister’s death; she moves away from London to reconnect with her mother and face the reality she’s tried to bury. Eileen is recently single and nearly 80, but has no chance at love in her tiny village; the chance to move to London will give her the lease of life that marriage took away.

In this book, Beth O’Leary creates two incredibly funny, strong women that narrate the book, as well as a whole cast of fully developed supporting characters. All the interactions are interesting and add to the story. There’s also an LGBT+ character who isn’t main, but certainly often appears.
It’s funny, happy and cute, but that’s not all. Just like in The Flatshare, this book also deals with some more serious themes. This time it’s grief. We’re told there’s no one way to grieve, and that grief doesn’t instantly disappear after a certain amount of time. Grief hits you at all times, prompted by the smallest memory. It’s something I’ve been fortunate enough to not have had to deal with, but it feels like it was done really well.
This book forms some strong relationships. Yes, there’s a romance and yes, I didn’t hate it, but romance is just one part of it. The more important relationships are formed between unlikely friends or in communities where first impressions are challenged.

I can’t wait to have an actual copy to pass around (and one in an extra large print for my nan!)

The Switch by Beth O’Leary a five-star read that you won’t want to switch for anything. Beth O’Leary wrote one of my favourite books to recommend the Flat share and she has managed to do it again; I know I can recommend these two to anyone and they will have great read no matter what genre they read. This was a great story and even just the descriptions of the Dales had my eyes shining as you could see the emotion coming through the description, it was so detailed and well done that you could smell the peaty rain and imagine you are standing on the Buttertubs pass, (not mentioned in the story, but if this inspires you to visit a must see place) you can taste the bitter blackberries like they are in your mouth and not on the page. Leena and Eileen have both won a place in my heart, Eileen just warmed me with every little thing she did, especially her little hall project. (There really should be more of those everywhere, you will so get that when you read the story and you need to read it, even if you only read one book this year!!)
Beth O’Leary brings you a story that will make you care and make you think, she has a way with writing people that will lodge them so deep into your heart even a triple bypass wouldn’t shift them. She has a way of describing people that you can identify with and makes you see them as real people and not just a character on a page. Never have I wanted to know more about a neighbourhood watch meeting in my life!! Each of the characters in this story play a massive role even if they only have a tiny part, there is no one that you could cut out and still have a strong story, that’s the test of a great story in my eyes.

My library book club were lucky enough to receive her first book, 'The Flat Share' for free to review on the radio and so I was excited to read this book through Netgalley as I was in the mood for an uplifting book. Of the two, I think that I preferred this novel as I love the idea of 'The Switch', with a grandmother and granddaughter swapping lives for eight weeks as this also meant different friends, a different place and a break from work.

I liked that this book involved some serious themes, such as death, grief and depression whilst also including thoughts, feelings and rediscovery of how to live again alongside hardships. There was something about this text that was very relatable, making it a quick read yet easily managing to juggle many different characters and places. The novel is split between the worlds of the two narrators in the first person and it was easy to identify which narrator was which without the need to look at the name at the start of each chapter.

I gave this book 4 stars simply because I found that the characters journeys were too predictable for me; as much as I enjoyed the overall story and structure, I found that I was constantly guessing the next step and that is an issue for me as I do like to be surprised. However, that isn't the be all and end all as I did like the story and found the two narrators endearing and wanted to see them in a better place physically and mentally. The author did a fantastic job of handling difficult issues sensitively so I don't think a trigger warning would be required for people to enjoy this book. One thing that I do really like about O'Leary's writing style is that it is a very easy read, I managed to finish this on a long train journey and got into the text within pages, which is a positive thing and I would recommend others to read it as although it isn't the best book I've ever read, it is the kind of book i would read on journeys when I want an easy, enjoyable read.

I loved The Flatshare and I loved The Switch too - it’s funny, sweet, tender and oh so charming. The Eileens are a breath of fresh air and I loved their journeys of healing.

A really lovely read from the author of The Flatshare which has been practically impossible to avoid over recent months. The Switch is about the lives of Eileen and her granddaughter Leena who decide to swap homes for 8 weeks (think The Holiday but with half the characters being in their later years of life). It moves quite fast at some stages and can make some passages feel a little disjointed but overall a book you want to sink into and become part of the friendship groups that are new and the established ones that further develop, somewhat unexpectedly for those involved. Beth O'Leary is a master at creating stories that essentially focus on where a character is living and who they encounter because of their situation.