Review: The Switch by Beth O’Leary (audio)

Title: The Switch

Author: Beth O’Leary

Narrator: Alison Steadman, Daisy Edgar-Jones

Published: August 2020, Macmillan Audio

Length: 10 hours 11 minutes

Source: Netgalley

Summary:

A grandmother and
granddaughter swap lives in The Switch, a charming, romantic novel by
Beth O’Leary, who has been hailed as “the new Jojo Moyes” (Cosmopolitan
UK)…

 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 long-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.

So they decide to try a two-month swap.

Eileen
will live in London and look for love. She’ll take Leena’s flat, and
learn all about casual dating, swiping right, and city neighbors.
Meanwhile Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire: Eileen’s
sweet cottage and garden, her idyllic, quiet village, and her little
neighborhood projects.

But stepping into one another’s shoes
proves more difficult than either of them expected. Will swapping lives
help Eileen and Leena find themselves…and maybe even find true love? In
Beth O’Leary’s The Switch, it’s never too late to change
everything….or to find yourself.

 

My thoughts: This is the first book I’ve read/listened to by Beth O’Leary but if all her books are as charming as this one, I will certainly be adding them to my list. As soon as I read the synopsis of this one, I knew I had to read it. I immediately got vibes of The Holiday, which is one of my favorite movies. I could not wait to see how this one played out and I was certainly not disappointed.

I found both Eileen and Leena to be utterly charming and endearing characters. I was equally invested in both stories as we follow them as they decide to switch living accommodations after Leena is forced to take time off and Eileen decides she wants to date again – at the age of eighty. As the two switch abodes, they end up finding way more than they were originally expecting.

I loved that this book was so much more than just a cute romance. Yes, there is some of that here but to me this book was about finding yourself and who you really are. Putting yourself in new surroundings even temporarily really showed how we can find our true happiness. These
two characters were both at crossroads in their lives, at very
different points in their lives, and yet doing this switch allowed them
to find themselves. There is definitely growth in our characters and as this is mostly a character-driven story, you would expect some development to happen.

This is definitely the type of book to lose yourself in and let the craziness of the world disappear for a while. It has all the feels and then some and I certainly ended up laughing and shedding a tear or two. I definitely recommend adding this one to your list – it comes out in August!

 



Audio thoughts: I thoroughly enjoyed the audio of this book. The two narrators did such a fantastic job with their parts and really made this book come alive. I particularly loved how the phone calls had that echo effect – this is the second time I’ve heard that on an audio book and it really is such a cool sound effect and makes phone calls stand out from regular conversations. Both narrators did a great job with the pacing and their intonations and added just the right amount of emotion to their voices as needed. This was a great book to listen to and my first Netgalley audio book! Thank you Netgalley for adding audiobooks…I’m absolutely a fan!