Author: Beth O'Leary
Narrators: Daisy Edgar-Jones , Alison Steadman
Published: 8th August 2020
First published: 16th April 2020
Publisher: Macmillan audio
Format: Audiobook
Source: Received from Netgalley
From Goodreads
A grandmother and granddaughter swap lives in The Switch, a charming, romantic novel by Beth O’Leary.
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.
"Only now I don't have any work to keep me going. Not for the next 8 weeks. Two enormous months gape ahead of me: unfilled. As I think at all those hours of stillness and quite and time to think, the bottom seems to drop out of my stomach. I need a purpose, a project... something! If I don't keep moving, those waters will close over my head and the very thought of that makes my skin prickle with panic."
The Switch was my first Beth O'Leary novel and given its popularity, I was surprised to see it among the "Listen Now" cathegory on Netgalley. How could I resist? I had been wanting to try audiobooks for months, and this book seemed like the perfect way to start this new experience. I would start by saying that I don't know if listening to this book, and not actually reading it might have affected my rating: I managed to listen to the audiobook just at certain moments of the day and sometimes didn't listen to it for days, probably loosing a bit the affection and intimacy this book makes you develop with its characters.
In fact, The Switch's - and the author's I believe, even if this is the first of her books I've read - strong point is certainly its ability in creating a sense of community between the reader and the fictional world presented. We're immediately introduced to Leena, our protagonist, stressed and so focused on work that her boss forces her to take a 2 months vacation, during which she decides to make a switch with her grandma: Leena will live in her cottage in Yorkshire, while seventy-nine Eileen will live in London, looking for adventures. I will be totally honest here and tell you that I didn't immediately like Leena. She was absolutely polluted by the city and snotty and aggressive towards the rural community where her grandmother belonged. But with Eileen it was a different story ... I was in awe of her! Her character is absolutely brilliant and what makes this book just unique! I realize is not often you get a chance to enter a seventy-nine years old's mind and it was an interesting, hilarious, at times shocking, experience. I loved that most of the imporant characters of this book were all elderly, because they give a cozy feeling to this reading that warmed my heart. The bond the reader creates with the Yorkshire community and later with the Shoreditch club Eileen creates, was incredibly deep and made me think more than once about how we do not often see elderly people as actual people. Just like Leena's flatmates, we often don't have a clue about how many gems may hide under old clothes and I was happy when Eileen's determination succeeded in revealing those gems: to see younger and older characters actually bond was the most rewarding thing about this story.
But speaking of Leena, as I said, she and I didn't immediately click, I needed the cleansing powers of the village to act on her before actually caring about her story. It was beautiful to see her transformation and to follow her through her attempt at getting rid of toxic relationships and old grudges. I found her relationship with her mother to be the most important part of her character and it was an emotional experience and a sensitive topic that the author treated perfectly.
For being a romance though, I would have like to have more of a focus on Leena's relationship as I felt like we got much more of Eileen's love life than hers - and although Leena's side was lacking, we got plenty of steam from Eileen, and I can't even start to tell you how odd it is to see that romance does exist even at 79!
Though funny, emotional and unbelievably sweet, I feel like the best I can do for this book is giving it a 3.5 stars. I was expecting much more from this story but I'm not sure that it will be one of those reads that will stick with me. I can't deny the author's incredible ability though, so I'm hoping that the Flatshare will gain me over!
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