Switcheroo: A Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

Olivia Goldsmith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 1999

At forty, Sylvie Schiffer has everything: a gorgeous house, two perfect children, a successful husband with a lucrative business.Everything but what she wants most: passion and romance. With the twins off to college, Sylvie thinks her marriage is about to bloom, until she discovers that her husband, Bob, is already seeding the garden--with a woman named Marla! When Sylvie confronts Marla, she gets the shock--and inspiration---of her life. Except for ten years and fifteen pounds, she and Marla could be twins. But all is not bliss even for Marla. Though she has the best of love--romantic presents, hot sex, candlelit dinners--she lacks the one thing she wants most: a husband of her own. Going beyond revenge, Sylvie hatches a brilliant, hilarious, and daringly outrageous scheme that just might fulfill both their wildest dreams...or leave them with nothing but two broken hearts.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The First Wives Club (1992) proved how well Goldsmith could get into the psyche of the scorned wife. Here, she makes even the mistress a sympathetic character. Sylvie has the makings of a perfect life--marriage to a successful, loving man; well-adjusted children; beautiful house in the suburbs. But just when she's ready to reclaim the romance in her marriage now that her kids are in college, she realizes that Bob has a girlfriend on the side--Marla, a younger version of Sylvie. When she's finally ready to confont Bob, she is inspired to confront Marla instead, and, after meeting the ditzy blond, she discovers that each of them is seeking what the other has: Sylvie longs for romance and spontaneity, Marla for a stable family life. Sylvie convinces Marla to swap identities for two weeks to see what it's like in the other's shoes. After a retreat to alter their appearances, the charade begins. Goldsmith has a knack for telling a funny story, and she is at her best here. If readers can get beyond the operalike disguise premise, they are in for a buoyant ride through a crazy tale of love and family, betrayal and revenge. A movie version is already in the works. Stock up. Mary Frances Wilkens --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

More monumental high-concept from Goldsmith (Marrying Mom, 1996, etc.), this time in a wonderfully funny fable about a wife and mistress who reverse rolesand a husband who apparently can't tell the difference. Sylvie Schiffer lives in happy domestic comfort with perfect husband Bob in a well-ordered colonial home in the plush Ohio suburb of Shaker Heights. There, Sylvie is surrounded by her perfect family (including her outspoken mother Mildred, who owns a ceramic store called Potz Bayou); she brews perfect cups of aromatic tea; she plays a perfect Steinway piano with an ebony lacquer finish; and in winter a fireplace fills her music room with the comforting scent of applewood. But not all is well in Sylvie's middle-class paradise. She's turning 40, her children are in college, and she wouldn't mind some marital passion to take up residence in her empty nest. But Bob, whose greatest passion seems to be his BMW ``Beautiful Baby,'' hasn't made love to her in months; instead, he's found a delicious little number by the name of Marla (does Donald Trump live in vain?), who works as a reflexologist (with a little toe-sucking on the side) and who incidentally looks a lot like a younger version of Sylvie. When Sylvie discovers the resemblance, she hatches a plot to ``switcheroo'' with Marlashe'll find out what it's like to be loved by her husband again, and Marla can experience the joys of having a man of her very own and a kitchen with an island in the middle. In another of Goldsmith's trademark transformations, Sylvie gets a face-life and tones up, while Marla eats banana-cream pies to fill out. It all culminates with a hilarious Thanksgiving when Marla, the non-wife, attempts to roast 28 frozen squabs. Contrived, yes, but hysterically funnyand after reflecting on the invisibility of women, the reader may find it no more contrived than, say, a Shakespearean comedy. (Film rights to New Line Cinema; $200,000 ad/promo; author tour; TV satellite tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: HarperTorch (September 8, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061097659
• ISBN-13: 978-0061097652
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,131,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 3 and 3/4 stars, March 13, 2003

By 

curvynovelsdotinfo "[e-mail]" (Maine, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Switcheroo: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

Heroine: Average/Plump

Imagine the joy of finally seeing your children off to college and making big plans for rekindling the romance between your husband and you.

Imagine that your plans fall through time and again because your husband is so busy with work and late-night "meetings."

Imagine confronting the subject of those "meetings" and discovering to your great shock that she looks exactly like you . . . 10 years and 15 pounds ago.

Now imagine, just imagine, switching places with her!

What worked for me:

I love funny books, and "Switcheroo" certainly had some laugh-out-loud lines and memorable moments, which was very helpful in offsetting the altogether heart-breaking story of a marriage crumbling amidst a mid-life crisis.

As a wife myself, I could certainly sympathize with Sylvie Schiffer's hideous plight. But I was surprised to find how much pity I could dredge up for young look-a-like mistress Marla.

Size-wise Sylvie was slightly plump and feeling frumpy in the beginning of the story, but she shed some weight in order to be able to swap lives with Marla, who gained weight for the same reason. (Ordinarily fussing over losing 10 or 15 pounds and getting plastic surgery would bother me, but I think for the most part the author handled the situation in a rather tongue-in-cheek way and gave society a bit of a thumb-to-the-nose where its beauty standards are concerned.)

What didn't work for me:

Well, it's a modern-day faerie tale that uses science in place of magic, so let's face it . . . plausibility isn't really a factor here.

I hope to high heaven my grown children are never so unobservant or self-absorbed that they cannot tell the difference between me and a total stranger, especially when the stranger has a completely different personality and way of speaking than I do!

I wanted to like the husband, and I certainly pitied him, but the vindictive streak in me thinks he did not suffer nearly enough for the havoc he wreaked in the lives of Sylvie and Marla.

And you've gotta love a word processor's find/replace tool. I certainly think there must have been a last-minute plausibility boost made to the manuscript using one. How else can you explain a 29 year old woman constantly being referred to as a young girl and talking as though she's hanging out in her dormitory lounge? Really, I suspect that Marla was 19 right up until 2 minutes before this book hit the presses.

Overall:

Great bubble bath book for fans of screwball comedy, but be prepared to really work at suspending your disbelief while reading.

Warning: some coarse words, weight loss and plastic surgery scenarios.

If you liked "Switcheroo" you might also enjoy "Infernal Affairs", "Tara Road", "Good in Bed", "Jemima J.", "Having It and Eating It", "Princess Charming", "Welcome to Temptation", "Faking It", The "Stephanie Plum" mystery series, "Plum Girl", "Bridget Jones's Diary", "Last Chance Saloon", "Fast Women", and "Getting Over It".

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars IN FOUR WORDS OR LESS...THIS BOOK IS HORRIBLE!, June 22, 2000

By 

Brian Murray - See all my reviews

This review is from: Switcheroo: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

Don't believe good reviews of this book. It was so simple-minded, so preposterous, and so STUPID at times, that I could not believe I was reading it all the way to the end. First of all, I won't get too much into it, but the story is totally unbelievable. Sylvie, a middle-aged housewife, finds out that her STUPID husband, Bob,(if you doubt that he is stupid, please read further) is cheating on her. She confronts his mistress, whose name is Marla, and finds that she is her EXACT TWIN, except 10 years younger, and therefore, skinnier and without wrinkles. Eventually Sylvie and Marla decide to go off to a spa together, get makeovers and plastic surgery so that they look like EACH OTHER (Bob was too stupid to ever notice that they looked exactly alike, if you can believe that) and then SWITCH PLACES, so Sylvie can get all the nookie she has been missing, and Marla can see what it's like to ACTUALLY BE MARRIED, since she's wanted to be married since the seventh grade. And NO ONE is the wiser. And then, of course, hilarity ensues.

Secondly, the conversations between characters are totally inane! Example: "God, I'm an a--hole. No, I'm the world's biggest a--hole." Bob stared out the window. "Think of the biggest a--hole in the world. Now raise it to the power of ten. That's me. I am a thousand a--holes." "Don't be so grandiose," John told him. "You're just a common garden-variety adulterer. I see them every day. Your d--- is running the company right now. I might as well be talking to it." Bob nodded morosely. "You're right." He looked down at his crotch. "He's the C.O.O." He sighed. "You know what I wish? I wish I could get him off the board of directors. Or just cut it off. Or better, I wish it would just fall off. It's ruining my life." John snorted. "Bob, eunuchs are not happy guys."..."I'd like to see the research on that," Bob said as John turned the car into the driveway....... If you enjoy that passage, there's plenty more where that came from, and worse. If not, sorry to torture you. Heed my advice and don't waste your time.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Just For Fun..., March 7, 2001

By 

Ginny - See all my reviews

This review is from: Switcheroo: A Novel (Hardcover)

I've read the other reviews of this book and all I can say is:

Come on people! This is pop fiction NOT literature! Unrealistic? Sure! Simple minded? Right again! Bad grammar? Worse than my four year old grandson. But the bottom line is that it was fun! So what if you have to "suspend belief"?

I read this over a "do nothing" weekend and it was just what I needed. A dose of unreality. I'll agree the "Bestseller" and "First Wives Club" were better books, but I had a lot of fun with this one. As long as you don't take it seriously and have nothing else to do - enjoy!

I agree with the reviewer that said this book is a movie waiting to happen, but Hollywood will mess it up and unless they get Nora Ephron involved it will be a bad one.