Sister Switch

Sister switch was a stunning book with laugh out loud writing and incredible messages.

The character of Erin and Lily were incredibly realistic and so was their relationship! The struggles they faced made them well-rounded! The theme of understanding and sisterhood was beautiful. The subtle magical element was very intriguing!

The writing style was the best part! It had me engaged throughout and I really enjoyed how witty and hilarious it was! The ending was also very satisfactory. This was just a brilliant fluffy read that I would definitely recommend!

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the E-arc! All opinions are my own.

The best cosy feel good book I have read in a long time. This book had me laughing out loud. The relationship between the characters was perfect and I was hooked from the start.

Finding funny, whimsical children’s books is always fun and I knew from the synopsis of this one that I would be in for a bit of a crazy ride. I haven’t read a Beth Garrod book before but I think she is known for writing socially awkward characters and I was looking forward to meeting some of them.

Erin and Lily Mavers are sisters with just 13 months between them but they couldn’t be more different. Erin is a straight A student with a love of rocks and drama while Lily is an aspiring writer with a love of cute boyband members and dogs. They bicker about most things and neither of them seems to really understand what it’s like to be the other. But then a trip to a strange hair salon called The Hairy Godmother leaves them with much more than new hairstyles -they’ve switched bodies and the Hairy Godmother is nowhere in sight! The race is on to find the elusive Hairy Godmother to switch them back before Erin has to impress a top blogger and Lily has to play Titania.

Erin and Lily’s relationship isn’t exactly in pieces before the body swap. They are very different but they also have an inherent sisterly bond with in-jokes and a deep love for each other. In fact, they are a very realistic sister pairing and I know that so many readers will instantly be able to relate to one of them or see their own sibling relationship in theirs.

Lily sees Erin as the golden child because she is very smart and academically-minded. She fails to see how great her own achievements are, such as writing a blog post that went viral, because they aren’t considered as important as her sister’s grades. This kind of sibling rivalry is present in almost every sibling relationship in the world, particularly when there is only two of you. I think it’s true that we don’t really see the hard parts of our sibling’s lives. We only tend to focus on what our parents praise and celebrate them for.

Of course, the body swap brings about a lot of funny scenes. Lily doesn’t study French but while she is in Erin’s body, she needs to attend Erin’s French lessons. That brings about this rather hilarious encounter with Erin’s French teacher. There are also a lot of not so funny parts where neither sister does a very good job of acting like the other one, which thoroughly confuses their friends and puts their sibling’s dreams in jeopardy. It certainly makes the reader desperate for the sisters to find The Hairy Godmother and get things sorted!

The girls’ dad is hilarious too. He is constantly doing something strange such as learning circus skills or practicing some kind of dance move. I feel like their dad’s personality is very British. If I didn’t realise already that this is a very British family, their dad’s eccentricities would confirm it for me. Both he and their mum are very supportive of both of their daughters which is really lovely to see. They perhaps don’t show their confusion enough about why their daughters are apparently behaving like each other rather than themselves but I like to think that they simply realise that their girls are at a weird age and are perhaps inspired by each other.

Agatha is The Hairy Godmother, a wise witch who doubles as a hairdresser. She sees that Erin and Lily need to learn what it’s really like to be in each other’s shoes and takes it upon herself to make that happen. I was fascinated with how she manages to appear and disappear so suddenly and the girls’ pursuit of her certainly made me feel like a kid again. I think I would love a whole Hairy Godmother series, where Agatha repairs relationships through body swaps and refuses to let up until both parties have learned something significant. I know that I’d gobble those books up easily.

Sister Switch is a very funny, whimsical read about stepping outside of yourself. Gaining a fresh perspective is something that we should all try to do in order to improve our empathic skills and ability to extend kindness beyond our immediate circle. I loved how this book teaches readers to do that through the medium of a highly relatable, witty story with some wonderful characters and friendships.