The Switch Beth O'Leary

[Idontpostmuch]

Hi everyone. Just finished reading this. Found it OK but not as good as The No Show. Anyway, something in it irritated me, and I just wondered if anyone else had had the same thought about it. The main character agrees to help a local primary school teacher paint his classroom and the two of them embark on a session painting the walls. Surely that doesn't happen! A teacher would be in trouble for redecorating a classroom. It isn't his property. It's just too ridiculous. It makes me wonder if I'm missing something.

I dunno. I think with books like that you just need to suspend your disbelief

I quite liked it. It was just escapist fun for me, because it’s so removed from real life

It's just a plot device to presumably throw the two of them together; those books are just brain fluff, so I wouldn't think too deeply about it.

Yes, of course it's a plot device but there are any number of ways to have got them together, and even brain fluff should hang together. I'm surprised the editor didn't spot it. It's like with The Seven Sisters, when temperatures are quoted in degrees F in countries where only Celsius has ever been known. Things like this jar because they drag the reader out of the carefully created world and break the spell, and that's as much of a problem for trashy novels, 'worthy' novels and everything in between.