The reason I picked up this book was because someone related it to the movie The Holiday, which is my favorite holiday movie. The whole idea of switching lives and finding happiness, who doesn’t love that. Lena and her grandmother Eileen both need a break from their lives and decide to switch houses, phones, computers, lives... for 2 months as a sabbatical.

This totally made me what to do a swap, just like in the movie,, but this book was so much warmer and insightful to see the swap between a grandma and granddaughter rather than strangers. The multiple generation level to the story was such a cool element, the whole idea that the book surrounds. I usually don’t think about people my grandparents age using dating apps, but it was very cute. All the friendships that came out of this arrangement are the ones you know will last a long time. I laughed many times throughout this book, which is exactly what I needed.

THE SWITCH follows Leena and her grandmother, Eileen, as they switch homes for two months, when Leena is ordered to take a two-month sabbatical from work. Leena is looking for some overdue decompression time after her sister’s death and Eileen is looking for a second chance at the life she never heard in London.

I loved the O’Leary’s first novel THE FLATSHARE and so when I saw this was coming out I was quite intrigued. Throw in that I love the movie the Holiday, which this reminded me of and I was sold right away.

This is downright charming. Both Leena and Eileen are complex characters. They have flaws and they are working through some big things. I loved that there were so many different elderly in this story. It was such a joy to see an author treat elderly characters with the same respect as younger characters and give them all voices and personalities that felt very distinct.

Overall, this has just sealed O’Leary as an auto-buy author for me. Her books always deal with complex issues while also being fun romps and her characters sing. This book was no exception.

CW: grief, loss of a family member, cheating

I really enjoyed this audio! It was a cute story between a grandmother and her granddaughter switching places to live. It honestly made me laugh,

Eileen being 79, was a hoot! Her online dating experience was really quit comical at times. I love how she took everything in stride and just rolled with the punches. And Lena, the granddaughter really learned a lot about herself while living at grandmas house. There was a horrible death that happened in their family a year before and had somewhat torn up the family dynamic. This moved helped to mend the rift and relationships became stronger.

Overall this was just a feel good book. It shows life’s up and downs, and how working together as a family can really fix the issues that life throws at us.

***the only thing I didn’t like about this audio was the phone conversations. In my opinion the audio would have been better if the other side of the conversation would have been normal and not muted like an actual conversation. It was just a little annoying for me. But really doesn’t ch age my overall opinion of the book***

Leena is in her late twenties and working a high-powered job in London. Eileen, her grandmother, is in her late seventies and stuck in a rut after her loveless marriage fell apart. When Leena takes a ‘forced sabbatical,’ they come up with the hairbrained idea to swap lives. Eileen will go and live in Leena’s Shoreditch flat, Leena will move to Eileen’s sleepy Yorkshire village.

But there’s also grief at the heart of the story – the loss of Leena’s younger sister Carla to cancer, a few years before we meet the characters. This devastating loss has driven a wedge between Leena and her mum, and subsequently Leena has thrown herself full throttle into her work. So this ‘switch’ is a chance for both characters to experience time away from their own lives, to gain fresh perspective and clarity.

There’s something about Beth O’Leary’s writing that is so charming without being saccharine, comforting without being sentimental. Eileen is an absolute riot, seventy-nine years ‘young’ who doesn’t bat an eyelid at dipping her toe in online dating and forming a ‘no strings attached’ relationship during her time in the big city. It was refreshing to see an older character portrayed in this way without it being a caricature or over-the-top.

‘Lying tangled in each other’s arms becomes slightly less practical when you’ve both got bad backs.’

Leena finds it a little harder to be welcomed into the Hamleigh village community, promptly losing her neighbour’s dog, causing upset at the committee meeting when she suggests a change to the May Day celebration theme, and being an all-round terrible baker. But she too comes to forge a deeper connection with the community, and an understanding of their values and experiences.

‘These people. There’s such a fierceness to them, such a lovingness. When I got here, I thought their lives were small and silly, but I was wrong. They’re some of the biggest people I know.’

Whereas The Flatshare felt like an entirely new and fresh concept, The Switch felt a little more derivative (shout out to one of my favourite Christmas films, The Holiday!) Because there were quite a few plates spinning in the air, it also felt contrived at times, with easy resolution of major conflicts (e.g. Leena’s relationship with her mother) and convenient solutions to thorny problems. Whilst the central premise is not romance, the romantic angles in the plot did feel a little hurried and underdeveloped, but nevertheless added a heartfelt dimension to the plot.

It’s perfect escapism for darker days and a wholesome, if uneven, novel to sink into.

Beth O' Leary, you officially have my heart.
Written by the same author of The Flatshare (another favorite of mine), The Switch is a lovely story about a granddaughter and grandmother who switch living situations for a few months. Lena, a young Londoner, needs a break from the grind of work and life in the city, and Eileen, an elderly divorcee needs a chance to get out of the country and try her hand at love. Rotating perspectives between Lena and Eileen, The Switch is a story about familial love and the importance of community. While there is a touch of romance in the mix, this is primarily an ode to the relationship between a grandmother and her granddaughter (and how much the two have to learn from one another).
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This book is sweet, heartwarming, and is sure to make readers smile. I listened to this on audio and loved the cast!

I loved Beth O’Leary’s “The Flatshare,” so I was thrilled to receive the audiobook of “The Switch” from NetGalley.

I’m always a little nervous that if I really enjoyed the author’s first book the second will inevitably be a “sophomore slump.” But this was not the case with “The Switch”. I ended up really enjoying the book. The characters are charming and funny and right off the bat, the plot is so quirky and cute. The idea of a grandma and granddaughter “switching” places is just the type of COVID distraction I need. However, it did take the character a little bit more time to develop and feel a little bit more 3-dimensional, but by the end I loved them.

As far as the audiobook goes, they choose to do a few strange things. There are two different narrators for the book, one for Leena and one for her Grandmother. When a phone call took place, they made the person on the other end of the line sound like they were on the extension by putting the voice in a “tunnel” type effect. This was incredibly frustrating as a listener. The volumes were on two different levels, and the other person almost sounded like they had a bad 70’s connection. I noticed at one point during the Grandma’s chapter, they had the actor voicing Leena inserted when she called her grandma, but that did not happen during the Leena chapters. That type of inconsistency would throw me as a listener. But by the end, they seemed to find their stride and stuck with one narrator at a time.

Overall, I would recommend “The Switch” as a cute getaway.

3.5 Stars. I listened to the audio. I received the audio ARC from Netgalley.
This is 1st person POV. Lena & her grandma Eileen.
I really enjoyed the narrators. The sound was a little tinny & faint at times. I'm new to using the Netgalley app. I had some technical issues with the audio stopping & then going to the home page.
I'm sure that the bugs will work out very soon.
Alison Steadman (Mrs Bennet in Pride & Prejudice- BBC version) narrates grandma Eileen's voice.
I love Lena's part narrated by Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People). I need to check out the Normal People on TV.
I know, I know, I'm behind on this! I googled her, she's only 22 y/o. She has a lovely voice, reminds me a little of actress Emily Mortimer.
I had a little difficulty with the rapid dialogue. I had to listen to Lena at 1.0 & could listen to Eileen at 1.25. I sometimes have to slow it down for British accents. Daisy & Alison's accent was great, but there was so much of it. A lot of characters all at once. Was I supposed to already know them?
I love that grandma Eileen 79 y/o, is so active and has a busy life in her town in Yorkshire.
Eileen and Lena have a close relationship. Lena's mom Marianne hasn't been close with either of them. There's a sad event that brings them even closer.
I would love to have this adapted for a BBC mini series.

Narrators Daisy Edgar-Jones and Alison Steadman perfectly portray this granddaughter and grandmother. I particularly enjoyed Steadman’s Eileen the grandmother. I could see the twinkle in her eye as I listened to her narration. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The story was a delight. Eileen finds herself single at 79, and Leena finds herself exhausted from overwork. Both are coping with the loss of a beloved sister and granddaughter. They switch homes and lives for the two months of Leena’s sabbatical from work. Hijinks ensue.

There were laugh out loud moments, but also a look at how we all process grief differently. Eileen builds a community in London, Leena learns to be a member of her grandmother’s community and finds healing there. I loved the warmth of the intergenerational relationships each develops in her new home.

Also, God Bless Her- Eileen does online dating and gets more action than her 29 year old granddaughter and I am here for it! 😂



This was a warm cup of tea with plenty of sugar and cream. Perfect for reading in 2020 when it feels like the world has gone mad.

Humorous and laugh out loud fun! I loved the narrators voices in this audiobook! In an attempt to change their lives and take a break, Leena switches homes with her grandmother Eileen. They spend a time in different cities with their switch. There is new drama in both of their lives, but they meet new people and experience whole new situations. The characters are absolutely delightful! Throughout the story, Leena and her mother and her grandmother have their own issues with their relationships between them. They have lost their closeness. Can they learn to understand each other and rebuild their relationships?

I found this book easy to listen to and the story line intriguing. For me listening to an audio book needs a compelling story, but even more important, the narrator has to be someone I could listen to. This book meets both of those important requirements.

The Switch was one fun read, it was a warm and fuzzy, and in parts hilarious. The book tells the story of Leena who was, up until a year earlier, at the top of her professional game, living in London with the perfect job, the perfect boyfriend, and the perfect group of friends. But Leena lost her sister Carla a year earlier to cancer and her mother’s unwillingness to even consider trying to prolong her life with experimental treatments abroad caused a deep rift in their mother/daughter relationship. Leena began slipping in her presentations at work and her very understanding boss, forced her to take a two month fully paid leave from work to allow herself to heal. Leena’s maternal grandmother Eileen (age 79), too, was trying to come to terms with her own grief while trying to be supportive to both her daughter and granddaughter. Eileen was caught in the middle trying to help mend the ties between mother and daughter.

Thus came about the switch. The unwilling vacationer, Leena, travels to visit her Grandmother Eileen in Leeds. While snooping inn her grandmother’s notebook Leena sees that Eileen is looking for potential dating/sex partners. To make a long story short, Leena with a two months’ vacation on her hands, offers her grandmother to switch living accommodations so that Eileen can dip into a wider dating pool.

There’s a lot of predictable here, cheating boyfriend, hunky male love interest (old school chum), Eileen gathering friends and offering her mature perspective to Leena’s sphere in London, and Leena taking over her grandmother’s jobs within the Septuagenarian/Octogenarian Watch Group where she lives - while bringing her own talents and younger generation technological savvy to the community. Both bring their go-get‘em skills to pull off major projects in their respective, alternate communities.

The beauty of the book lies in the witty dialog, the humorous situations that Leena and Eileen fall into, and the quirky characters of both communities. There is also the predictable healing and rapprochement between Leena and her mother.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for enabling me to download an audio of The Switch by Beth O'Leary, narrated by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Alison Steadman, in exchange for my honest review. Although this genre in not my normal reading preference, the book was lovely, and I truly enjoyed. I loved Leena’s narrator and I loved Eileen’s less - I cannot say which voice was which because the NetGalley App does not seem to have detailed enough credits information listed for viewing. I loved the technique employed for narrating the telephone conversations between the characters.
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This was an okay book for me. I liked it and I liked the plot, the idea for the two characters switching lives, but I just had a hard time connecting to the characters. I did like the family dynamics within the novel. Overall, an enjoyable book, but not a favorite.

I thoroughly enjoyed this cute read! I loved the grandmother and granddaughter dynamic as well as their switch of homes.

I struggled with this story a lot because I felt the blurb told me everything that was going to happen and there was no element of surprise. I also found the story to be very slow going and would lose interest as I listened.

As far as audio production goes I liked when the characters sound like they are actually on the phone. It made the exchange more realistic.

The Holiday: Family Edition, is a grandmother-granddaughter house swap. Eileen, the grandmother, is amazing. I loved her life perspective and strategies. I was surprised there wasn't more of the story with the grandmother and granddaughter living together in the grandmother's house since Leena, the granddaughter, could learn so much from her amazing grandmother. Leena is a hapless 20-something, and could really use some of Eileen's wisdom and experience.

Daisy Edgar-Jones and Alison Steadman both narrate beautifully.

This audiobook was provided as a loan from NetGalley.

This book is a fairly good escape read. There are a couple of heavier threads in the story that keeps it from completely satisfying that need though. I also found there were a few too many characters. I would rather have had less characters, to give the author a chance for more character development. That being said, I enjoyed the story and it was very good as an audio book. Having two narrators for the main protagonists was great.

3.5 stars

Thanks to #NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an ARC of #TheSwitch.

This is a delightful fun story of a grandmother and granddaughter who switch lives for 8 weeks, each needing a break from their own lives and the results of that. The way the grief over the granddaughter's sister's death was handled so well, I was tearing up at points as they each described the hole they felt and the way they did or did not deal with it. I really liked the dual narrator style of writing, and just loved the romance (from both of them) throughout. It's fairly unusual to have sex discussed for an older more elderly character, and it was closed door, but I loved both characters romances equally. The narrator's British accents were absolutely delightful and it was so good as an audiobook (minus the scenes of online dating written messages back and forth, that got a bit tedious in audio form!) The story held my attention, and I looked forward to listening to it during my commute to work.

Beth O'Leary's novel is over the top and requires some suspension of disbelief for the grinch inside of us, but it is heartwarming and that is the point. I listened to the audiobook, thanks to an ARC by the publishers and enjoyed the dual narrations by Daisy Edgar-Jones, a young British actress with another audiobook narration in her resumé, and Alison Steadman, a more established British actress with more roles and audiobook narrations under her belt.

They did a fantastic job bring Leena and her grandmother Eileen to life. Leena's adventures in her grandmother's Yorkshire village is a bit on the predicable side, but it still has the appeal of a [author:Sophie Kinsella|6160] romance.

The true star of the book, however, is Eileen. Like all the characters who first met Eileen in London, I fell in love with this almost octogenarian who was looking for love--and sex!--after her husband left her after many years of unhappy married life. Eileen is a force to be reckoned with. Used to being a community leader and organizer she is quick to identify those in need of companionship in her London community and sets out to do something about as she navigates a relationship app and the men who express interest in her. And yes, her happily-ever-after plot line was predictable as well, but I did not care after all of her adventures in London.

Such a wonderful journey of finding SELF again.
I had so much fun to listen to this book. It was truly inspirational. From the beginning I have loved both Leena and her grandmother Eileen.
After they lost Carla, Leena's younger sister, to a disease they weren't themselves. It's been as if they lost part of themselves to a griev.
When Leena had a panic attack at work she was given two month of sabbatical. She and Eileen decided to swap places for the whole time. Both of them met new wonderful people and discovered that as long as people who you love surround you, you can live anywhere.

I also want to say that both narrators did exceptionally great job.

Grandmother Eileen and granddaughter Leena swap their lives to help them heal from the death of Leena’s sister with Eileen moving to a Shoreditch flat with Leena’s flat mates and Leena taking residence in a small Yorkshire village and getting stuck in with the neighbourhood watch.
I read and thoroughly enjoyed The Flatshare last year so kept watch for more from Beth O’Leary. However, when The Switch was released, I wasn’t grabbed by the synopsis so didn’t pick it up at first.
I finally decided to listen to the audio and am pleased I did! Much like in The Flatshare, O’Leary gathers a charming cast of characters and writes about their lives with humour.
I warmed instantly to Leena and O’Leary realistically describes her grief related anxiety issues. Plus, she has a collection of nerdy Buffy t-shorten what’s not to like! But the star of the show is grandmother Eileen, who made me chuckle several times. She is caring, nosey, kind and interfering and I thoroughly enjoyed her adventures in London. The romance elements of the story only make up part of the plot (with Leena’s feeling a little shoehorned in - I didn’t quite invest in that) with the story also dealing with friendship, family and grief.
The performances for the audiobook narrators were superb; Leena’s chapters being read by Normal People’s Daisy Edgar Jones and Eileen’s by Gavin and Stacey’s Alison Steadman. They both brought life to the characters and were thoroughly entertaining.