Review: The Seven Day Switch

The Seven Day Switch by Kelly Harms
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Celeste Mason and Wendy Charles may be neighbours with daughters who are friends, but Celeste and Wendy aren't friends, not at all.

Wendy is a stick-thin mother of two and businesswoman, married to a handsome sculptor. Celeste is a stay-at-home mom with three children and a balding husband in insurance. Wendy never has enough hours in the day, her kids are used to eating frozen meals and take-outs, she has an enormous mortgage and resents being mommy-shamed by Celeste. Celeste, on the other hand, bulks cooks nutritious food for her family, volunteers for bake-sales, car-pooling etc and sits on her front lawn with a glass of red wine of an evening. She just wants to be friends with someone in the local area but none of the other moms will give her the time of day.

Then after a sangria-off at the local softball potluck Wendy and Celeste wake up in each others' bodies. After the initial hilarious misunderstandings when each woman wakes up in the other woman's bedroom with the other woman's husband, the two of them settle down into each other's lives with varying degrees of success. At first Celeste appears to be very successful, cleaning Wendy's grubby home and getting her children and husband to take some part in running the house, even if she does have to send Wendy's husband a pin to the children's school when she asks him to drop them off! But then when it comes to Wendy's business, Celeste is out of her depth and only surviving by inventing family emergencies and postponing client meetings. Conversely, Wendy is astonished at how much Celeste's husband and children do around the house. But Wendy seems to be subverting Celeste's routines by buying the kids plastic toys and junk food. As the days go on, Wendy and Celeste discover more about each other, their marriages and their own lives their only hopes rest on delivery of an obscure bottle of vodka used in one of the sangria recipes.

I love all those body switch movies and tv series like Big John, Little John, Freaky Friday, Big, etc, so when I saw this as an Amazon early release I loved the premise. I also loved the execution, neither woman is demonised, although I feel maybe Wendy gets it slightly worse - but then she is also the one creating the competition in her own mind.

It's funny, sad, life-affirming, and charming. Highly recommended.

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