The Boyfriend Swap by Meredith Schorr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Summary provided by publisher:
Is Christmas really the most wonderful time of the year? New Yorkers Robyn Lane and Sidney Bellows aren’t so sure.
Robyn has always dated struggling creative types. For once, her parents would love her to bring someone with health insurance and a 401(k) to their Chrismukkah celebration. Her actor boyfriend doesn’t qualify. While across town, Sidney’s professional life already belongs to her parents. She’s an attorney at her father’s law firm and she works tirelessly to keep her love life private. If she brings her lawyer boyfriend to their annual Christmas extravaganza, her parents will have the wedding planned by New Year’s Eve.
A mutual friend playfully suggests they trade boyfriends for the holidays. The women share a laugh, but after copious amounts of wine, decide The Boyfriend Swap could be the perfect solution. This way, Robyn can show off her stable attorney boyfriend and Sidney’s high-society family will take no interest in her flakey actor beau.
It’s a brilliant plan—in theory. In practice—not so much. When Will turns out to be the boy-next-door Robyn crushed on hard throughout her teenage years, and Sidney’s family fawns all over Perry like he’s an Oscar-winner rather than a D-list wannabe, one thing is certain: The Boyfriend Swap might just change their lives forever.
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When I had first stumbled onto this read, I was intrigued by the idea of two women swapping boyfriends, and honestly, how it was that they could even get to such a point. You’d assume that at least one person in this quartet would object—because they’re normal—but no, not in The Boyfriend Swap. In fact, the one who initially objects is surprisingly easy to convince, and soon enough, the two women are off on their holiday trips home, fake boyfriend in tow. Which seems ridiculously easy, right? But I’m happy to say that I don’t care, because I really ended up liking this book, and happily accepted anything Meredith Schorr threw at me.
Like, for example, the fact that Robin’s boyfriend would happen to be Lucy’s childhood crush?? I live for coincidences like these that throw people together! It makes it all the better when Lucy brings Will back to her childhood home, and she’s having to pretend she’s in a relationship with him, all while having to pretend that she doesn’t have actual feelings for him… Yes, I just couldn’t help but love the easy way Lucy and Will got along with each other, and the plain fact that it was just easy.
Robin and Perry (Lucy’s boyfriend) were interesting in a different way. Perry was supposed to be someone her parents would easily forget so that when Robin “broke up with him”, it wouldn’t matter. But Perry doesn’t do forgettable, so instead, the whole family ends up falling for him when they meet him, and that leads to Robin trying to find ways to sabotage this growing relationship Perry seems to be having with her family, though things don’t go quite how she expects them to.
I did find the characters to be endearing, and enjoyed their interactions with each other. I especially liked Perry’s character. He was surprisingly kind and thoughtful when you least expected it, and though I won’t go too deep into his role due to spoilers, I will say that he was definitely a big part in helping Robin figure some important things out.
In conclusion, I really did like this book (though I had to knock off a star because of how long it took me to finish this book because I’d had a hard time wanting to get back to it when I’d put it aside for the day) and the whole rom/com aspect of it. I really feel like this book would be the perfect screenplay for a chick flick, and being that I’m a sucker for chick lit and chick flicks, I’d totally watch it.
I would definitely recommend this to you if you’d enjoyed the movie The Holiday, since it invokes similar feels.
Thank you to Henery Press, via Netgalley, for giving me this copy in exchange for an honest review.
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