You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
chaptersofmay's Reviews (319)
Easily one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. I’m a romantic a heart and rarely stray from the genre but THIS BOOK. Everyone needs to read this book.
Easily one of my favourite romance books for a long time. I found the story hilarious and refreshing, would definitely curl up and read this again!
I still think about this book on a regular basis. I’m tempted to reread it I loved it so much.
Novels like this just make my heart smile, they’re cute, hilarious and so easy to follow. I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to find books like this one because I enjoyed reading so much.
I got so lost in the relationship between every character (especially our main two), I just could go on without reading every page! LOVED IT.
Novels like this just make my heart smile, they’re cute, hilarious and so easy to follow. I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to find books like this one because I enjoyed reading so much.
I got so lost in the relationship between every character (especially our main two), I just could go on without reading every page! LOVED IT.
The Switch is a wholesome, heart-warming and unbelievably charming story. It was delight to read, and reminded me exactly why I’m such a fan of Beth O’Leary’s voice.
I absolutely love the concept behind this story. Two women of the same age swapping houses is fun, but two women who are related and 50 years apart? It’s a recipe for an entertaining adventure.
The story starts from the very first sentence, there’s no hanging around. It spans well over eight weeks, but moves quickly. Beth O’Leary has the kind of writing that makes the reader feel like her friend. It’s uplifting, easy and relaxing to enjoy. There’s something about her voice that’s colloquial yet sophisticated, and just so comforting. Both The Flatshare and The Switch have this lovely quality. Her natural sharpness is present again in this novel, and endures from the first chapter to the last.
I sincerely laughed out loud reading this book. The humour is well-timed and well-placed, never feeling gawky. It’s intelligent and occasionally subtle, which really contributes to the engaging dialogue between characters. One thing that really made me giggle was Eileen’s first reaction to London, because I felt the same way when I travelled to the capital alone. It’s chaos down there!
O’Leary perfectly divided the two atmospheres. Yorkshire is Yorkshire and London is London. They run as different speeds, have different attitudes, and even a different air. Life in a small village is often simplified and laidback. Whereas London is a complex web or diversity and non-stop energy.
The secondary characters were a perfect addition to this book. From Leena’s roommates to the Eileen’s neighbours. They may not have the biggest parts but felt fundamental. In just a few short sentences, you could see the wonderfully reliable alliances Leena has with her friends in London. And the reader gets a sense of community spirit from the first Neighbourhood Watch meeting. I love the quirks the author gave each elderly character from Hamleigh-in-Harksdale. The village is small, but full of pride, and way too easy to the love.
While The Switch reads with a smooth levity, there’s always a layer of the depth that helps the story to reach the heart. Within the plot, the characters tackle grief, insecurity, depression and identity confusion. The author conveys emotion so truthfully, it’s difficult not to empathise with the struggle of the characters.
The Switch is categorised as a romance but I think this side of the plot could have been developed more. However, I really valued the idea of Eileen looking for love in a new city. I rarely read books that focus on the love lives of women over 40, and it was nice to see someone approaching 80, ready to start a new chapter of life. Actually, Eileen’s spirit as a whole moved me. She’s an incredibly strong woman, and her resilience and ambition are two traits Leena also possesses.
However, I really adore the bonds built between the characters in the book. Leena and the elderly villagers are a force to be reckoned with. Eileen and basically anyone she came into contact with made an amusing and compelling dynamic. The characters really became the heart of this story, and that’s the aspect I’ll remember most.
It may not be a story I’ll rush to reread, but I definitely don’t regret picking up this book. Beth O’Leary and her effortlessly refreshing writing has won me over again. With a picturesque English village, compelling characters, and comically charming wit, The Switch makes a gratifying summer read.
For more book reviews and posts, check out my blog or follow along on Instagram
I absolutely love the concept behind this story. Two women of the same age swapping houses is fun, but two women who are related and 50 years apart? It’s a recipe for an entertaining adventure.
The story starts from the very first sentence, there’s no hanging around. It spans well over eight weeks, but moves quickly. Beth O’Leary has the kind of writing that makes the reader feel like her friend. It’s uplifting, easy and relaxing to enjoy. There’s something about her voice that’s colloquial yet sophisticated, and just so comforting. Both The Flatshare and The Switch have this lovely quality. Her natural sharpness is present again in this novel, and endures from the first chapter to the last.
I sincerely laughed out loud reading this book. The humour is well-timed and well-placed, never feeling gawky. It’s intelligent and occasionally subtle, which really contributes to the engaging dialogue between characters. One thing that really made me giggle was Eileen’s first reaction to London, because I felt the same way when I travelled to the capital alone. It’s chaos down there!
O’Leary perfectly divided the two atmospheres. Yorkshire is Yorkshire and London is London. They run as different speeds, have different attitudes, and even a different air. Life in a small village is often simplified and laidback. Whereas London is a complex web or diversity and non-stop energy.
The secondary characters were a perfect addition to this book. From Leena’s roommates to the Eileen’s neighbours. They may not have the biggest parts but felt fundamental. In just a few short sentences, you could see the wonderfully reliable alliances Leena has with her friends in London. And the reader gets a sense of community spirit from the first Neighbourhood Watch meeting. I love the quirks the author gave each elderly character from Hamleigh-in-Harksdale. The village is small, but full of pride, and way too easy to the love.
While The Switch reads with a smooth levity, there’s always a layer of the depth that helps the story to reach the heart. Within the plot, the characters tackle grief, insecurity, depression and identity confusion. The author conveys emotion so truthfully, it’s difficult not to empathise with the struggle of the characters.
The Switch is categorised as a romance but I think this side of the plot could have been developed more. However, I really valued the idea of Eileen looking for love in a new city. I rarely read books that focus on the love lives of women over 40, and it was nice to see someone approaching 80, ready to start a new chapter of life. Actually, Eileen’s spirit as a whole moved me. She’s an incredibly strong woman, and her resilience and ambition are two traits Leena also possesses.
However, I really adore the bonds built between the characters in the book. Leena and the elderly villagers are a force to be reckoned with. Eileen and basically anyone she came into contact with made an amusing and compelling dynamic. The characters really became the heart of this story, and that’s the aspect I’ll remember most.
It may not be a story I’ll rush to reread, but I definitely don’t regret picking up this book. Beth O’Leary and her effortlessly refreshing writing has won me over again. With a picturesque English village, compelling characters, and comically charming wit, The Switch makes a gratifying summer read.
For more book reviews and posts, check out my blog or follow along on Instagram
Such a Fun Age is a refreshing debut novel that explores privilege, racial biases and millennial anxiety.
It follows the lives of Emira Tucker and Alix Chamberlain. Emira is a 25-year-old black woman from Sewell Bridge, Maryland. She works part-time as a babysitter and a typist, but is struggling to find her place in the world. She often feels like every aspect of her life is moving forward without her, and lives with the everyday anxiety that many millennials endure.
Alix is 30-something white woman from Allentown, Pennsylvania. Alix starts in New York City as a blogger and influencer, before moving to Philadelphia for her husband’s new job and hiring Emira as a babysitter to her 3-year-old daughter, Briar.
We also meet Kelley Copeland, a white man who is present when Emira is accused of kidnapping Brair at the local grocery store. He films the exchange between the security guard and Emira, before emailing the footage to Emira and deleting it from his phone.
After an incident in a grocery store, Alix become obsessed with making things right and equal with Emira. She wants justice, and overcompensates in trying to make her babysitter feel comfortable. She worries about coming across as a textbook white woman, to the extent of spending large amounts of her day wondering what Emira is doing or thinking. She becomes obsessed with Emira seeing the person beneath the privilege.
It became obvious from the beginning that both Alix and Kelley suffer from the white saviour complex. They both exhibit the behaviours of a white person who goes out of their way to help non-white people, but with the wrong motive. Both the characters constantly try to make decisions and share what they think is best for Emira, for self-serving reasons. It’s very much like celebrities who travel to under privileged countries and snap photos with the locals to promote a more charitable image. The characters used their relationship with Emira to prove to themselves that they were just and upright people.
Alix was constantly reminding herself she was doing the right thing. At first, she seems well-intentioned but that quickly changed as more of her lunatic behaviour began to bleed through. Kelley surrounded himself with black people, only dated back women, and was almost over-supportive of that community. He clearly felt like that covered him from ever feeling like he was discriminatory.
Alix and Kelley seemed to compete with each other to see who could be the biggest ally to the black girl, or to see who was the most unprejudiced. Reading about their constant attempts to be impartial was exhausting, yet painfully realistic. The author’s intention was to highlight some of the racial prejudices and micro-aggressive behaviours that don’t make the news every day, and she did just that.
My favourite think about the novel was the light and easy writing, despite the book’s heavy themes. The characters in the novel are well-developed and skilfully used to move the narrative along while teaching the reader an important lessons on racial biases and stereotypes. The background and conversation between the characters fleshes out their personalities, which makes the book all the more compelling. The characters felt like real people, which is why it was so easy for me to relate to Emira as a 20-something black woman.
I absolutely loved the relationship between Briar and Emira. She may have only babysat for 21 hours a week, but for those 21 hours, Briar got to matter to someone. She’s an intelligent, observant and charming little girl, and her incessant babbling never failed to make me laugh. Briar’s parents may have not appreciated her adorable personality, but there’s no doubt that Emira did.
I wasn’t a fan of the ending. Just as I felt like the plot was becoming more and more exciting, the payoff was underwhelming. It felt like the story had been cut short. I would have liked a chapter or more to be dedicated to Emira’s development after the main events in the book. Everything that happened directly affected her life, and it would have been nice to see her mature from her experiences.
Overall, Such a Fun Age is the perfect book to construct diverse and interesting conversation. Its thought-provoking story, realistic themes and straightforward writing makes this debut an gratifying and compelling read.
For more book reviews and blog posts, check out my blog, https://chaptersofmay.com or follow along at instagram.com/chaptersofmay
It follows the lives of Emira Tucker and Alix Chamberlain. Emira is a 25-year-old black woman from Sewell Bridge, Maryland. She works part-time as a babysitter and a typist, but is struggling to find her place in the world. She often feels like every aspect of her life is moving forward without her, and lives with the everyday anxiety that many millennials endure.
Alix is 30-something white woman from Allentown, Pennsylvania. Alix starts in New York City as a blogger and influencer, before moving to Philadelphia for her husband’s new job and hiring Emira as a babysitter to her 3-year-old daughter, Briar.
We also meet Kelley Copeland, a white man who is present when Emira is accused of kidnapping Brair at the local grocery store. He films the exchange between the security guard and Emira, before emailing the footage to Emira and deleting it from his phone.
After an incident in a grocery store, Alix become obsessed with making things right and equal with Emira. She wants justice, and overcompensates in trying to make her babysitter feel comfortable. She worries about coming across as a textbook white woman, to the extent of spending large amounts of her day wondering what Emira is doing or thinking. She becomes obsessed with Emira seeing the person beneath the privilege.
It became obvious from the beginning that both Alix and Kelley suffer from the white saviour complex. They both exhibit the behaviours of a white person who goes out of their way to help non-white people, but with the wrong motive. Both the characters constantly try to make decisions and share what they think is best for Emira, for self-serving reasons. It’s very much like celebrities who travel to under privileged countries and snap photos with the locals to promote a more charitable image. The characters used their relationship with Emira to prove to themselves that they were just and upright people.
Alix was constantly reminding herself she was doing the right thing. At first, she seems well-intentioned but that quickly changed as more of her lunatic behaviour began to bleed through. Kelley surrounded himself with black people, only dated back women, and was almost over-supportive of that community. He clearly felt like that covered him from ever feeling like he was discriminatory.
Alix and Kelley seemed to compete with each other to see who could be the biggest ally to the black girl, or to see who was the most unprejudiced. Reading about their constant attempts to be impartial was exhausting, yet painfully realistic. The author’s intention was to highlight some of the racial prejudices and micro-aggressive behaviours that don’t make the news every day, and she did just that.
My favourite think about the novel was the light and easy writing, despite the book’s heavy themes. The characters in the novel are well-developed and skilfully used to move the narrative along while teaching the reader an important lessons on racial biases and stereotypes. The background and conversation between the characters fleshes out their personalities, which makes the book all the more compelling. The characters felt like real people, which is why it was so easy for me to relate to Emira as a 20-something black woman.
I absolutely loved the relationship between Briar and Emira. She may have only babysat for 21 hours a week, but for those 21 hours, Briar got to matter to someone. She’s an intelligent, observant and charming little girl, and her incessant babbling never failed to make me laugh. Briar’s parents may have not appreciated her adorable personality, but there’s no doubt that Emira did.
I wasn’t a fan of the ending. Just as I felt like the plot was becoming more and more exciting, the payoff was underwhelming. It felt like the story had been cut short. I would have liked a chapter or more to be dedicated to Emira’s development after the main events in the book. Everything that happened directly affected her life, and it would have been nice to see her mature from her experiences.
Overall, Such a Fun Age is the perfect book to construct diverse and interesting conversation. Its thought-provoking story, realistic themes and straightforward writing makes this debut an gratifying and compelling read.
For more book reviews and blog posts, check out my blog, https://chaptersofmay.com or follow along at instagram.com/chaptersofmay
