Cute idea - a freaky friday love story - but it just missed the mark for me. Execution just didnt work well. Arc from netgalley.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
I thought this was a delightfully funny romance that gave me "Freaky Friday" vibes, but instead of a mother and daughter switching places, it was a romantic couple. I like how this book truly shows that you can''t really experience what goes through a persons head unless you are literally walking in their shoes. Just like Cesca Major's last book, this book is a beautiful and thought provoking look at what it is like to be in love.

I definitely recommend this book.

Many thanks again to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book.

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This was such a good book! I love the swapping bodies and how they navigate this wedding in their significant others body. It was funny and introspective. The flashback stories were good, and overall the pacing was good and entertaining to read

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for an honest review!!

On the way to Amy's sister’s extravagant wedding, she and her boyfriend Flynn have a massive argument during a thunderstorm. Lightning strikes, and in Freaky Friday fashion, they swap bodies, forcing them to experience the wedding weekend as each other. As they navigate exes, secrets, and wedding chaos, their relationship is tested. While the body swap is a humorous twist, I wanted them to break up so badly! They weren’t a good fit at all and knew absolutely nothing about each other. LIKE NOTHING. The wedding antics were fun at times, and I enjoyed how their relationships with family members evolved over the story. But yeah, Amy and Flynn were better off as friends (if even that.)

The idea behind this book was really interesting! It didn’t play out quite how I expected and felt a little lackluster by the end. The bulk of the story wasn’t bad and actually enjoyed some of the heart of the characters. The backstories and memories went prettt deep at times and that was nice to see.

3.5stars—IF I WERE YOU by Cesca Major is a contemporary, adult, body-swap, romance story line focusing on Flynn Waller and Amy Norman.

Told from dual first person perspectives (Flynn and Amy) using present day and memories from the past, IF I WERE YOU focuses on the embattled relationship between our story line couple. Amy’s sister is getting married, and our couple is struggling with their own relationship but a sudden rain storm and flash of light results in a body swap between our story line couple. Having to attend the weekend activities in one another’s bodies, secrets are revealed, misunderstanding and miscommunication threaten the breakdown of their floundering relationship.

The world building follows the struggle of two people caught in an unimaginable situation but a situation that reveals a lifetime of secrets and regrets. Flynn is hoping for a future, Amy is battling between head and heart, reconsidering her relationship with our story line hero.

The secondary and supporting characters include Amy’s sister Laura and her fiance Jay, as well as Amy and Laura’s mother Trish, and her husband Geoffrey, Flynn’s ex Tanya and her boyfriend Eddie.

IF I WERE YOU is a story with a little bit of everything: drama, heart break, humor and fantasy. The premise is entertaining and intriguing but often confusing as the reader had to remember the Amy/Flynn / Flynn/Amy dynamic. The characters are colorful and desperate. There is little to no romance as throughout most of the story line the embattled couple are not themselves, and the world around them is not what they expected.


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At the start of this novel, Amy and Flynn have been dating for two years but they definitely have communication issues and are not on the same page. On the way to Amy’s sister’s wedding, they get hit by lightning and swap bodies! We then see how they are going to navigate the weekend, plus flashback chapters both to their relationship before the weekend, and to their lives before that.

I had mixed feelings about this one - Amy and Flynn were kind of annoying (especially Amy), and the miscommunication was kind of out of control. But that being said, it was an enjoyable and easy to read book and I was invested in what was going to happen. And despite the light touch with which the book was written, it actually was a somewhat deeper book than I expected as both characters had some tough stuff in their backgrounds. I did not like this quite as much as Cesca Major’s prior book Maybe Next Time, but still enjoyed it enough that I would definitely keep reading her books

3.75 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed Cesca Major's new book, "If I Were You". This Reese's Book Club pick author (Maybe Next Time), is back with a romance version of Freaky Friday. Amy and Flynn are in an argument on their way to her sister's wedding and their circumstances find them switched in each other's body. How will they get through this whole weekend as each other, around people who know them so well? In addition, they find out that each of them is keeping secrets. There is laughter and tears along the way and beautiful lessons learned about the importance of family, friendship, trust and the mistakes we make when we jump to conclusions about the people who know us best. This book will make you smile. I can easily see this novel adapted for the screen. Many thanks to HarperCollins Publishers, William Morrow, and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of the novel in exchange for my honest review.

If I Were You by Cesca Major is such a funny and emotional story.
I was enthralled by this story from the first page and felt every single emotion the main character went through. This story was beautifully written and highly entertaining.
I really enjoyed this unique style on the body-swap storyline here.
A nice and simple story that I really enjoyed.

Thank You NetGalley and William Morrow for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

4.25 ⭐️ I really enjoyed this book!! I loved how Flynn was so funny and I loved the progression of their relationship! There is cussing in this book but no spice! I laughed and I wanted to cry! The author did a great job of having a funny story with heart!💜

I really enjoyed this humorous and unique romantic comedy. It was like “Freaky Friday” but for a couple. This book was light and fun, but it was also quite emotional at times. The story is told in dual POV and alternating timelines. It did get a bit confusing, and it was hard to keep track of who was who before and after the body swap. Once I caught on, it was an enjoyable read. This book is about putting yourself in others’ shoes (or bodies!), and I think everyone could learn a lesson or two.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you netgalley for the arc of this book in exchange for my honest review, i was super excited to read this book because I absolutely loved Cesca Majors last book “Maybe next time”. It brought me to tears. Pick it up if you havent read it yet! The premise of this book is one we are all familiar with two people change bodies with each other and are frantically trying to figure out their way back to themselves. Amy is in a particularly difficult situation because they were on the way to her sisters wedding. Now she has to trust her boyfriend who she was ready to leave to be her for all of her maid of honor duties. Obviously chaos ensues, this one has a happily ever after. Well done four stars,

Amy and Flynn have been together for 2 years and while Flynn thinks they are ready to move to the next level, these two have major communication issues (which is probably why Amy is having doubts). On the way to Amy's sister's wedding the two are struck by lightning and end up in a "Freaky Friday" body swap situation leading to a weekend of confusion, revelations, humiliations, and even more miscommunication.

I had a hard time getting into this book and I think it was because miscommunication for me is not a favorite trope/theme for me. I also found many of the characters' personalities to be frustrating (Amy more than Flynn)- therefore those two elements alone made this novel hard for me to fully enjoy. I didn't understand how the characters could be in a 2 year relationship when in many ways they didn't really know who the other person was (more from Flynn's lack of sharing than Amy's) - and while I get this is a major theme of the book, the frustration level for me personally was very high. In addition because of the body swap element I was often confused as to who was doing and saying what (that may have been me). That being said, I did enjoy the story itself, I like the magical realism and the hard topics that Cesca Majors tried to take on with a lighter touch, but I think I preferred her previous novel and I do look forward to her next.

3.5 stars

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC to review

This was your typical Freaky Friday situation. The execution just didn't work for me. It may be someone else's cup of tea but the don't like when characters have big secrets and are waiting for everything to blow up.

The premise for this books sounded so good and right up my alley. I really wanted to love it. Unfortunately, I spent most of my time reading wondering if these two should even be in a relationship at all.

The idea of a ‘Freaky Friday’-esque body swap between a couple opens up so many fun and interesting possibilities. Here, while it did lend opportunities for Amy and Flynn to gain more understanding from each others perspectives, it really showed me even more that despite having been together for two years, they barely knew each other. It seemed as though they never discussed anything deeper than surface level, and as such, I didn’t feel there was any real depth to their relationship.

Some of the situations they found themselves trying to navigate were entertaining, and the backstories both Flynn and Amy had for their past made me sympathetic to them. I just wanted to feel more of a connection between them.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

When I was a kid, my grade school used to have movie days twice a year where we would all go to the auditorium and they would play a classic Disney movie for us. I loved these days, and what made them even more fun was we never knew when movie day would arrive. We'd be sitting in class, and then our teacher would suddenly announce that we needed to take a bathroom break. Then, we were told to line up outside the classroom, and off we would go to the auditorium.

I distinctly remember the day we were shown the original "Freaky Friday" with Jodi Foster. Seeing as how I had an extremely overactive imagination, I became obsessed with the idea that I could swap bodies with an adult. It sounded so fun when I was six - now I would love to do the opposite. Oh, to have the energy of a twenty-something again!

Needless to say, when I read the synopsis for this book, I knew I needed to check it out. I read (and absolutely loved) Cesca Majors' "Maybe Next Time" last year, so I knew I would be in for a treat.

This book focuses on Amy and Flynn, a couple at a crossroads in their relationship. Flynn is ready to move in with Amy, but Amy isn't so sure she's ready for that - in fact, Flynn has kind of been getting on her nerves lately and she's considering breaking things off. On the way to Amy's sister's wedding, the two take a different route due to traffic congestion, leading to them getting lost and having an argument in the pouring rain. When lightning strikes, the two are thrown to the ground, and when they wake up, they find they have swapped bodies.

Now, the couple must attend the wedding while pretending to be the other one, and this is when all sorts of chaos ensues. They each learn all kinds of things about the other - including secrets that may rip them apart forever.

Using such a familiar trope is risky - how often have we seen body-swapping play out on the big screen? Disney did it with "Freaky Friday" (and again in the reboot), several "Shaggy Dog" movies where a man switches body with his dog, and of course, we've seen Tom Hanks play a child in "Big," Jennifer Garner in "13 Going on 30" and several others. In this case, though, the author uses this as merely a plot point to move the story forward. The book isn't about swapping bodies; it's about two loveable characters trying to find their way back to each other.

Major does a fantastic job of exploring the complexities of relationships in a hilariously entertaining way. It would have been easy to go the slapstick route with the characters trying to figure out each other's bodies, but these issues are only touched on briefly. That's not what the book is about, and Majors keeps us focused on our main characters, their secrets, and their growth.

Speaking of the characters, I loved both Amy and Flynn. They're very relatable and complex. I also really liked the supporting cast. Each of them had a distinct role in the book, and none felt like they were just fillers.

The structure of the book also works really well. We get alternating chapters from both Amy and Flynn's viewpoints, and we also get chapters dedicated to different times in their lives before they met and after they first started dating. As the book progresses, we slowly begin to understand why each of them acts and feels the way they do and what has caused the underlying issues in their relationships.

If you are a fan of the body-swapping comedies of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, this is the book for you. It has a surprising amount of heart and is filled with a cast of unforgettable characters. Rom-com lovers and contemporary fiction lovers alike will really enjoy this one. After reading and loving two of her books, Cesca Majors has quickly become an auto-buy author for me.

Freaky Friday in book form, seems interesting right? Wrong. This book was SOOOO boring. I feel like the author could have taken this in so many directions and it let me down severely.

Thank you to Netgalley & the publisher for my early arc copy of this!

What a fun read. Freaky Friday for a couple, we follow Flynn and Amy's journey of turning into each other and realizing how much they've missed in terms of learning about one another. While it took me a bit to really get into, I so enjoyed it, and shed some tears a few times! A sweet story about love and finding one's self.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for the copy of If I Were You by Cesca Major. This is not my usual genre, but I read it because I loved Major’s last book Maybe Next Time. Of course I saw Freaky Friday, but this is the first time I have read a body switch book. I thought it was interesting to have Amy and Flynn see life through each others’ eyes and their reactions to being in a different physical body, with all of its limitations and advantages. It was interesting how they each learned secrets about each other because someone didn’t know who they really were. I loved how Amy learned so much about herself and how others saw her by being able to see herself from Flynn’s body. Sound confusing? It was, which turned out to be the only thing I hated. When I was reading a chapter, I had to constantly remind myself that Flynn’s chapters were about him, but he looked like and acted like Amy. When I would get confused, I had to remind myself again. If it had been a movie, it would have been obvious, but as a book it was clumsy. If you’re looking for a unique rom com with a little fantasy, this is the book for you! 4 stars.

I loved the idea of this book but after that.... the miscommunication was just a lot in this book.. Yes it was fun that they had to pretend to be each other at the wedding. Yes Amy and Finn did learn a lot about each other finally but I still just feel like there was something missing. I was hoping for more after the last book from the author. It was solid 3 star though.