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A review by obsidian_blue
The House Swap by Jo Lovett
2.0
Wow. So I have Kindle Unlimited which allows me to read new authors. And I thought the synopsis to this was good (a man and woman swap homes) and then I started reading and then just thought to myself this book had no ending. "The House Swap" had the chance to be engaging and a very fun romance book, but the two leads (James and Cassie) made me dislike both of them separately for pages and pages and then when they start to have interest in each other it made zero sense to me. The book drags to the point of it being painful at one point of me wanting it to just end.
"The House Swap" follows Cassie, a successful writer (hidden) who lives in Maine. After being told she really needs to relocate to London to immerse herself into the writing for her next book, she is told about an AirBNB swap house site she can join. James, a successful downsizer (I know that's not his title, but think of the George Clooney character in Up in the Air) who after having a very ugly public fallout with his girlfriend, is hoping to leave London to get away for it all. He ends up deciding to swap with Cassie for several months.
So here's the thing. Cassie and James both suck. James sucks for a lot of reasons (no spoilers) but his behavior was offputting and I didn't buy the changes we see in him because they felt like they came out of nowhere with little build-up. Cassie got on my nerves because she just seemed to have no concept of boundaries and also we just hear very sketchy details about her life before. Same with James. We get info dumps on them towards the very tail end of the book when I 100 percent did not care.
The chemistry, sorry, it was never there. I just kept reading and hoped for something more than what I was giving. At one point I think I said, well this is giving me nothing. Great.
The other characters outside of one or two became a blur. I had a hard time with people being introduced we would hear that so and so was so close to, but they were only there to advance some scenes. I also think this story was told backwards. Good example is that Cassie's mother, and her Scottish father, I was way more curious about that and how her mother is a doctor. It just felt like they plopped into the story and got removed super quick. Same with James and the mysteriousness of what happened with his one sister.
The setting of London and Maine felt a bit blank to me. I at least can say the house descriptions were well written.
The ending was a Happily Ever After (HEA) but by that point I was kind of checked out of the story. There's a whole plot introduced around the 80 percent mark that I thought was not well done at all. No spoilers, but it made me roll my eyes a bunch.
"The House Swap" follows Cassie, a successful writer (hidden) who lives in Maine. After being told she really needs to relocate to London to immerse herself into the writing for her next book, she is told about an AirBNB swap house site she can join. James, a successful downsizer (I know that's not his title, but think of the George Clooney character in Up in the Air) who after having a very ugly public fallout with his girlfriend, is hoping to leave London to get away for it all. He ends up deciding to swap with Cassie for several months.
So here's the thing. Cassie and James both suck. James sucks for a lot of reasons (no spoilers) but his behavior was offputting and I didn't buy the changes we see in him because they felt like they came out of nowhere with little build-up. Cassie got on my nerves because she just seemed to have no concept of boundaries and also we just hear very sketchy details about her life before. Same with James. We get info dumps on them towards the very tail end of the book when I 100 percent did not care.
The chemistry, sorry, it was never there. I just kept reading and hoped for something more than what I was giving. At one point I think I said, well this is giving me nothing. Great.
The other characters outside of one or two became a blur. I had a hard time with people being introduced we would hear that so and so was so close to, but they were only there to advance some scenes. I also think this story was told backwards. Good example is that Cassie's mother, and her Scottish father, I was way more curious about that and how her mother is a doctor. It just felt like they plopped into the story and got removed super quick. Same with James and the mysteriousness of what happened with his one sister.
The setting of London and Maine felt a bit blank to me. I at least can say the house descriptions were well written.
The ending was a Happily Ever After (HEA) but by that point I was kind of checked out of the story. There's a whole plot introduced around the 80 percent mark that I thought was not well done at all. No spoilers, but it made me roll my eyes a bunch.