Loved The Switch! It was a quick and cute read. I loved the grandmother/granddaughter relationship and how they switched spots and found a better fitting lifestyle and opened up a whole new world for each character. A gentle reminder to step out of our routines and we might find a better life!

The Switch by Beth O’Leary is an utterly delightful story set in the UK and chronicles the lives of a lively grandma and her namesake granddaughter as they switch lives in an attempt to step away from their current lives and struggles for a short while. One story takes place in London and the other in a small rural town. The two swap residences and take on each other’s projects, as well as deem to make some changes of their own while on hiatus.

All of characters are so likeable, endearing and charming, I hated for the story to end simply because I didn’t want to say goodbye to my friends. The dialogue was witty, the messages of grief, starting over and becoming who you want to be at any age, forgiveness, betrayal and more were poignant, while the setting was cozy and vivid.

The narration of this book was perfectly suited to the characters and made me feel as if I was in the cottage, or London flat, having a chat and a cuppa.
I was entranced by this story and cannot wait to read another book by this author!

Thank you to NetGalley, Flatiron Books and MacMillan Audio for the free advanced copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

A very sweet story! Beth O’Leary writes books that tackle tough subjects, like grief, and turns them into beautiful stories about family, friendship, and love. Though there were a lot of characters to keep track of in this book, I still found each of the main characters’ story’s to be strong and enjoyable. Listening to this book on audio was enjoyable as the two POV's switch actors, but I did find the narration a bit hard to keep track of all the side characters. Definitely was a slow burn on the love story side of things, but overall this book was really cute and worth the read and I'm glad I was able to listen to it!

I was attracted to listening to this book by the premise, and it didn't disappoint. This was a charming listen, and the two narrators for the main characters added greatly to my enjoyment of the book. I've enjoyed a few of the movies out there about characters accidentally and "magically" changing places and living each others lives. This isn't quite that - these characters intentionally choose to inhabit each others' homes and lives for a few weeks, both feeling the need for a break from their own lives and issues. Leena needs a break (and indeed her break has been mandated by her employer) from her high-stress London job. Her grandmother, Eileen, needs a break from her busy small-town life and neighbors. Neither is quite sure what she's getting into when they make the abrupt decision to make the switch, and watching them cope and deal with the changes in their new-found lives is fun. It's a charming book, well narrated, nicely paced and with interesting secondary characters. O'Leary's first book is now on my TBR list.
My thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for providing a digital copy for an unbiased review.

The Switch has been a charming story about getting out of your comfort zone, discovering who you are and healing yourself, the audio was a great experience they have that spirit you expect when buying an audiobook, and it certainly does not disappoint, each performance was beautiful, and I immersed myself in the world of books, feeling everything that the protagonists were going through; also in the subject of "learning a language" this book was wonderful, being able to hear the language and being able to repeat the chapters to understand the pronunciation of English has been a pleasant experience.

*Sigh* The Switch was such a lovely story about pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, healing, and finding out who you really are. I would highly recommend listening to this one on audio. The narrators did a fantastic job, and I felt like I could picture them as Eileen and Leena.

Leena is a twenty-something Londoner with a fast-paced career and a successful boyfriend, but she's still reeling after the death of her sister. It all comes to a head when she has a panic attack during a really important meeting, and is put on forced leave for a couple of months.

Eileen, Leena's grandmother, lives in a small English town where she plans local events and tries to help the people in her community. Her husband has recently left her for another, younger, woman, leaving her to question what life might have been like if she hadn't gotten pregnant and married so young and instead lived out her dreams of living in London. Plus, she'd love to meet a new man, but there are very few eligible bachelors in her town

So, Leena and Eileen decide to switch lives. They live in each other's houses, take on the tasks the others were doing, and even switch phones and computers. The story that follows this switch was heartwarming and hilarious. I loved the sweet dynamic between grandmother and granddaughter, and their respective journeys of discovering who they really are and the impact they each have on the people in their lives. I thought it was a clever premise, and that the story bore out in a very satisfying way.

Thank you NetGalley for the audio copy of this book!

I look down into the tea leaves. Letitia’s shoulders start shaking before I see what she sees; by the time I start laughing, she’s whooping, really going for it, tears in the corners of her eyes, stained tunic bouncing with each gulp of laughter.
The tea leaves look like … genitals. Male genitals. It couldn’t be more distinct if I’d tried to arrange it that way on purpose.
‘And what does that mean, eh?’ I say, when I’ve finally got my breath back.
‘I think it means good things are coming your way,’ Letitia says, wiping her eyes. ‘That, or it’s telling me the tea leaves game is a load of cock and balls.’
-Beth O’Leary, The Switch
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You have no idea how much I laughed while listening to this book! My goodness what a heat warming read this was! I absolutely loved it. The audiobook was a fantastic listen as we get dual narration which really brought the characters to life.
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We start with Leena who’s been crushing it in the business world. That was until she started having panic attacks and has one during a very important work pitch. She’s told if she wants to keep her job she must take 2 months off to look after herself. Feeling like a total mess, she calls her grandmother Eileen for some comfort and advice. Her nan convinces her to come for a proper visit, so she does.
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When she arrives, she realises things are not quite right with her nana either. After a chat, 79 year old Eileen and twenty something Leena decide to swap lives for 2 months. Eileen will head to London to look for love and Leena will take over Eileens duties in the small town.
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This was such a fantastic read. It is my second Beth O’Leary book and it certainly won’t be my last. She builds such incredibly real and relatable characters. I felt so many emotions with this book. I couldn’t believe the amount of times it had me laughing out loud! Eileen was such a perfect representation of a grandmother it was heart warming, and Leena was such a lovely kind soul. I really loved this one!
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I hope this becomes a movie one day because it would be fantastic!

Another great read from Beth O'Leary! I love her books so much. They are fun, entertaining, witty, and just feel good reads. I love her characters, and how their relationships develop throughout her novels. Predicatable at times, but I needed something like this in the midst of the COVID world! I absolutely loved this one. Bridget Jones vibes for sure!

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an advanced copy of The Switch audiobook. This was a fun light, with heavier undertones, romantic comedy. If you like the movie, The Holiday, you'll enjoy this book. I enjoyed the two narrators who voiced the two main characters. It was nice to hear the age of the grandmother and granddaughter in their age appropriate voices. The story was fairly predictable but that's typically what you get when you read this type of book. I love a good story set in a charming English village as this story was. Good summer vacation read.

I adored this book. It is filled with such heart and has solidified for me that Beth O'Leary is an auto-buy writer. I truly loved The Flatshare and I might have liked The Switch even more.

This story deals with grief beautifully. It is about standing up for yourself, it is about never giving up on your dreams. Never feeling like you're too old or too set in your ways to try something new. Never settling...I could gush for ages. It's just such a lovely story.

Both narrators did a phenomenal job, they kept you fully entranced in the emotional weight of this world.

HIGHLY recommend!

Such a light listen. Loved the characters voices and the story. Cute book with a good set of characters.

The narrator made the story come alive! A granddaughter and a grandmother switch homes and discover that planting roots in a new location results in finding love, friendship, companionship and healing. An absolutely captivating story!

Absolutely delightful story of a grandma and her granddaughter at a crossroads in life. The two decide to switch places with one another and take a break from their lives. The novel does a wonderful job describing the personal adventures both go on. The book did a beautiful job detailing the transformations of both women. Highly recommend this book.

I didn’t expect much from this book based on my previous experience with the author but I was still disappointed.

We get to see the two main characters being swept up in projects, side plots, and even the romantic lives of side characters, which led to very little romantic build up at the end of it. I usually do prefer it when romances include other plots and facets to their stories but the romance definitely took too much of a backseat in this book for it to be marketed this way. While I think this dual perspective was a good idea to start with, it did not get executed effectively.

We first get to experience Leena’s perspective: she’s grieving, she’s overworked, she’s in a relationship and she ends up handling errands in a small village in Yorkshire far from her fast paced London life. This could’ve been the perfect set-up for a “city girl comes back home, realises her city boyfriend is terrible and ends up with her honest and caring childhood crush” trope except it just did not work out for me. I think the reason for it is that she was in a relationship and relatively content with it (bar one instance) for most of the book and she barely had any interactions with the new love interest. I think it would’ve been more effective to have had her and Ethan break up a little bit earlier in the book for us to get more time with the man we were supposed to be rooting for. I think there was also a huge missed opportunity to have an actual discussion about how Ethan used to be her safe space, that there was a time he was there for her in a way she needed and I think we don’t really get to see the impact the loss of this would’ve had on Leena. I just feel like it was just brushed over because it was so late in the book. We also never got to learn anything past surface level about the new love interest (yes I absolutely forgot his name because he is so unmemorable) apart that he has a dog and a daughter, and that he’s a teacher, that’s it. It’s just impossible for me to be invested in a romance if only one of the characters is fleshed out.

Well, actually, I thought Leena herself didn’t really have a stand-out personality either. It felt like the only thing she had was being an overachiever and being angry at her mum and even then these two threads fell flat for me. The book opens up with Leena having a panic attack and implying these were regular occurrences for her but we never circle back to that, apparently these just stop because she’s not at that job anymore and not because she found actual healthy ways to cope with them or manage them. We also know she loves her job so much, and is overly invested in it but then her career becomes irrelevant in the book too. The storyline I appreciated the most with her was the one with her mum. I think Beth O’Leary did a good job at showing different perspectives on grief and fostering better communication and openness with your family. However, even that subplot felt rushed and fell a little bit flat by the end of it. I also did not understand why so close to the end of the book a whole new different thread about the mother having to find herself too was added, it just felt really messy.

We then also get to see Eileen (Leena’s grandmother, 79, single) using dating apps for the first time while experiencing life in London. Most of the time that she spends “romantically” with someone, which is already not a lot of time in and of itself, is not serious nor endgame from the get go so there was no way to feel invested in that except to say “good for her”. The other person she talked to a lot online also led to nowhere and at the end of the day she ends up with someone who she apparently had history with (not that we learn about that right up until the end) and so there is barely any build up to their shift in dynamic. I think there was just one too many romantic threads going on for me to feel invested in any. However, I do think it was very interesting to see her perspective on love and romance since we usually don’t get to see it in a lot of books.

I did end up liking her perspective more because Eileen was very endearing and she was truly trying to do the best for everyone around her. Her positivity could’ve felt a little overbearing at times but I think she was actually the only well-written character in this book so it was easy to root for her. It was heartwarming to see her try to foster a sense of community and caring everywhere she went.

What hurt this book is that there were way too many side plots. I was actually more invested in them than the romances and I think the author was trying to do something important with them but they kind of just stayed surface level for me. They weren’t quite as effective as they could’ve been had this book been a little more focused. While I love the idea of having these “switched lives” the problem with it is that the book is already divided in half between these two different perspectives, and then both of the characters have many different threads each. So it feels like you’re not getting enough of anything. Even the characters felt flat and one dimensional which made any point the author was trying to make lose its impact.

This was an easy read as an audiobook but I feel like I could’ve easily DNFed it if it had been a physical copy.

This audiobook was SOOO good. The narrators were fantastic and truly brought the story to life, and the tinny audio effects for dialogue over phone calls were a nice touch. It played like a TV show in my head and I would love to see it adapted. My only gripe was that you could hear the narrator for Eileen lick her lips before every sentence and that was...not enjoyable.
In terms of the writing and plot, time flowed well in the story; the pacing wasn't too fast or slow, it all just felt very natural and wasn't hard to keep track of. I cared about all of the characters (even the side ones) and they felt so REAL, like they could be people that I really know.
The reason it's getting 4/5 stars is that I don't think it's very memorable. While I may remember it as a good audio recommendation, I know that I won't remember the plot or the characters. It's a good read, but not a new favorite.
I must admit that I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much if I had read it physically (again, the narrators were just that good) so I definitely recommend the audio for this one.

The Switch is the story of two women: young Leena and her grandmother. Both women are grieving losses and both could use a change of environment for different reasons, so they swap homes. Leena moves into her grandmother's home in a Yorkshire village and takes on her projects, and Eileen moves into Leena's flat in London.
The story is funny and sad, at times. I think I much prefer the character of Eileen.
The recording is well done, I think. I enjoyed listening to it!

I recommend this book to women of all ages.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the Audiobook.

I loved this story so, so much. It was perfect. The Switch is heartfelt, expresses true emotions and has strong character development. The narrator was perfect. The story progressed at a good pace, but it is a VERY slow burn romance. I appreciate that both main characters were finding love instead of just Lina, as is typical. I will come back to this story and this narrator again and be recommending to friends of all ages. Sometimes we read just what we need at just the right time; I know this is going to be THAT book for a lot of people. It's perfect.

I was delighted to hear that NetGalley was adding audiobooks to review. I love audiobooks, most of the reading I did last year was through audiobooks. I love the idea of multitasking, especially when one of those tasks include reading.

I was even more delighted to find The Switch by Beth O'Leary was available to listen to. I have heard great things about this author and I was excited to see for myself.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story about a woman and her grandmother, both dealing with grief, decide to swap lifestyles. Leena lives in bustling London and Eileen lives in a small village in the English countryside.

I thoroughly enjoyed the two narrators of this audiobook, they did an incredible job of bringing this beautiful story to life.
I loved this concept of the lifestyle swap. I enjoyed the main characters, especially Eileen. The supporting characters were so lovely too. Beth O'Leary has created such a sweet, heartfelt story and provided beautiful settings and atmosphere. I enjoyed the humor and the dialogue in this book. Grief was portrayed well without bringing the vibe of the story down. Friendship was as big a part of this story as the romance was. I loved the friendships in this story.

This is my first Beth O'Leary read and I look forward to reading more of her work.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and the new NetGalley Shelf app for this listening experience. This review includes both a review of the content and a review of NetGalley audio.

Full cast/2 character audio is nice
Younger voice at 1.75 and older voice at 2x
Tinny recording
Don’t like the “down the phone line” style

I love the idea of an octogenarian having an adventure. I love the premise that you can always change something in your life.

I loved continuing to listen and the rest of/the secondary characters start to develop. Such a wide array of human kind that everyone can find relatable.

The romances are a little predictable, but still enjoyable to watch unfold. I also enjoyed the mother-daughter and grandmother-granddaughter relationships.

“I couldn’t have figured myself out, if I’d not been someone else.”

I hope to be as cool, active, and witty as Eileen when I’m 79.

Some playback issues with the NetGalley Shelf audio app. Stopping at the end of chapters and having to force close the app. The inability to rewind past the start of the chapter and having to go to the menu, select the previous chapter, and then fast forward to where I wanted.

What a lovely book this was, I really enjoyed it, it was more women’s fiction than romance, and that was ok because reading about Leena and Eileen was a pleasure, I really liked both characters, specially Eileen and how they learned from this experience, I love the sense of community, which always sounds like idyllic to me.
The side character were all very charming with the exception of the boyfriend, which it’s a little tiresome, just didn’t need him at all.
I loved the narration too, everyone had their distinctive voice than shone through.