The 52 Book Club 2022 Challenge Prompt: 45. A Book with Illustrated People on the Cover

Other Possible Prompts: 15. A Five-Syllable Title, 23. Author with An X, Y, or Z in Their Name

FRIENDS!! Happy 2022!!! I had no idea the relief I would feel at the new year would be so palpable. I’m so grateful to be here and to be sharing with you my first read of the new year: Maggie Knox’s The Holiday Swap.

Truthfully, I actually didn’t love this one. And I kind of didn’t expect to? I thought I would like it, and it would get me in the Christmas spirit, but I really am not a huge Christmas book person. Tessa Bailey’s Window Shopping is the closest I’ve come to loving one. That being said, The Holiday Swap was super cute and a great book to pick up periodically throughout the season.

Cass and Charlie are twin sisters, born and raised in the small town of Starlight Peak, but leading very different lives as bakers. Cass remained in Starlight Peak to run the family bakery, while Charlie went off to LA to be a baker on a television show, Sweet & Salty. After a head injury leaves Charlie unable to smell or taste (a rather important skill for a baker!), and a bad breakup leaves Cass wanting out of her small town, the twins swap lives, like they did as children, to get through the holiday season unscathed.

They soon find out it’s not as easy to last a week as an adult as it was to swap for hours as kids. And only complicating matters are two men…who are falling for a different twin than they think they are.

This book took me way too long to finish, especially considering it was a read I grabbed for Christmas, not the new year. I think this book, under the right circumstances, would be a breeze to get through: I read half of it in just two hours this evening to finish it up. However, the plot is somewhat slow, didn’t grab or hold my attention, and I frequently found myself putting it down after just a few pages. And that’s my main reason for only giving three stars, as the rest of the book is rather charming.

Starlight Peak is a town you can really see in your mind. I thought that setting was beautifully crafted and well constructed. Charlie, then Cass’ side of things in LA, however, was far harder to get into, and felt a little colder. I think you come to expect that of a book that takes place primarily in a city, but when you go from this charming small town setting, with its little bakeries and sweet neighbors where everyone knows your name, to the city of LA where everyone treats the twins like garbage…it’s not as enjoyable, to go back and forth. But I think that gets melded into the story well, and into its conclusion…without giving away too much!

The men folk were fun but forgettable. This book is improperly categorized as a romance, truthfully. I felt this story to be more about coming of age, sisters, and the theme of family – which is equally fitting to the Christmas season. That is to say, it wasn’t what I was expecting, but I liked it better than what I would have expected. Had The Holiday Swap lacked love or connection between Cass and Charlie, it would’ve been a much more dull book. The romance isn’t there, but familial connection? They’re all over it.

Would I recommend this book? Probably not. I can’t think of an instance where I would instantly gravitate toward telling someone to read this. I didn’t hate it, but I really didn’t love it. I don’t think I’ll be picking up anything else by Maggie Knox (which is apparently a pen name for a writing duo).

Happiest of new years to you all, friends! Let this first review of the year be an exciting start to this reading challenge, a full year of 52 books. Happy reading!