The Switch - Beth O'Leary

Title: The Switch

Author: Beth O'Leary

Pages: 328

First Published: 2020

What is it about: After a horrible year of working and working, Leena has a breakdown just in the middle of a very important presentation. Her boss gives her 2 months of sabbatical to get better and tells her to go away, take it as an opportunity to put her life back together after her sister's premature death. Leena decides then to leave London behind and go up to Yorkshire to visit her grandma. 

Eileen Cotton, almost 80-years-old, who has been left by her husband, is starting a new project. She wants to find someone to date, but there are no eligible men up in her little village in Yorkshire. 

Once Leena arrives, it is clear to the pair of them that they both need a change in their lives. Eileen has been busy taking care of Leena's mom and everyone else in the village, but herself. Leena is stressed from everything. So they decide to switch lives. Eileen is going to spend the next two months in London, chasing her dream from when she was a young girl, before life got in the way. Leena is going to take a much needed break from everything and everyone up in Yorkshire.

My thoughts: I loved this book from the start! It was predictable, but it was just such an amazing, light read; it was comforting. Eileen was such a character! I laughed basically during all of her chapters. She is such a strong female character and everyone should learn from her.
Leena was more the typical protagonist of every romance novel, she struggles with her life, goes away for a few months and magically understands what she is really supposed to do. 

There are so many books around like that and don't get me wrong, I do love reading them every now and then, it brings some sort of comfort to my life, especially these days; but Eileen's story was much more interesting for me to read.

What I loved about both characters, though, is how they were there for other people. No matter who they were, they were there to help them. Female power to the rescue!

I read 'The Flatshare' as well by Beth O'Leary, but 'The Switch' was much better in my opinion.

The Midnight Library - Matt Haig

"We spend so much time wishing our lives were different,
comparing ourselves to other people and to other versions of ourselves,
when really most lives contain degrees of good and degrees of bad"

Title: The Midnight Library

Author: Matt Haig

Pages: 288

First Published: 2020

What is it about: Nora feels alone in the world. She doesn't speak to her brother anymore, well, he doesn't speak to her; her "best friend" has moved to Australia and the relationship is just not the same; she gets fired; her cat dies and she doesn't have a fiancée anymore after she decided not to marry him. 

So she decides to kill herself. No one is going to miss her, right? 

But death doesn't come easily. Before she can move on to an afterlife, she stops into a limbo - The Midnight Library. Mrs Elm, her former librarian at school, is there waiting for her; she will help Nora going through lots of different books, which will lead to different lives of 'what if...'. What if she married the guy? What if she carried on with swimming? What if she was still talking to her brother?

My thoughts: I loved this book. I cried, of course. I knew it was going to end the way it did, but the journey to get there was truly emotional. 

It is such a well written, uplifting novel, perfect for everyone. We all need to remember what's truly important in life. 

We spend so much time on social media, looking at other people's lives, imaging "what if I was her/him", "what if I had all their money/success". And this is unhealthy. We all have different lives, we all are on different journeys and everyone's is as special as the other. 

Even if we don't realise it or think about it every day, our life has an impact on someone else's.