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I asked Beth Garrod, Access All Awkward, to pick five books from my Goodreads shelves that she wants to read and five from her own shelves that she thinks I might enjoy. Check out the post.

#books #lit #blog tour #prettybooks #beth garrod #access all awkward #super awkward #recommendation

Maja Tomljanovic's illustrated book cover for Beth Garrod's Blame It on the Mistletoe.

#maja tomljanovic #blame it on the mistletoe #book covers #beth garrod #british literature

Title: Blame It on the Mistletoe

Author: Beth Garrod

Series or standalone: standalone

Publication year: 2021

Genres: fiction, romance, contemporary

Blurb: Elle is a social media star with the #DreamLife...or so it seems. Determined to shake up her content and gain new followers, she's on a mission: can she find a British fan to swap with for Christmas? Holly loves everything about Christmas...but after a mortifying mistletoe disaster with her ex, her perfect plans unravel like a bad Christmas sweater. Can Holly save the holidays when she switches places with her favourite social media influencer? Elle gets more than she bargained for when she meets the cute boy from across the street...and Holly wasn't expecting Elle to have a handsome twin brother. This holiday is full of surprises.

#blame it on the mistletoe #beth garrod #standalone #2021 #fiction #romance #contemporary

I received this book as an ARC last year and I never got around to reading it. Last Year was a very bad year for me and ARC's. I didn't really read that much, and my list just grew and grew. I'm determined to get through my ARC's by hopefully March (fingers crossed!) I thought Christmas was the best time to read this one.

Elle is a young girl in America who is striving to achieve social media fame. When she is asked by one of her favorite social media influencers to enter a contest and possibly become a member of one of her groups. Elle sets out to reach 15,000 new followers and have the best social media Christmas. She decides to find someone who will switch places with her. Holly is a Christmas fanatic. However, with her sister away and her mother putting the house up for sell, her Christmas isn't going to plan. When her favorite social media influencer posts a picture of her neighborhood and wants to switch places for the holiday, Holly jumps on the idea of getting away and having the best Christmas ever. Can they both have the best Christmas ever?

I did find this book a tad bit slow at first. However, I'm sure it's just because it is a young adult romance. I absolutely loved Nick and Holly's story. I was so invested in them. I liked how genuine they were. I wasn't all that into Elle's point of view. I just couldn't relate to her as much. I did like the relationship that Nick had with Gram. Beth Garrod did a great job at creating two separate story lines for the girls. I do look forward to seeing what she comes up with next.

I received this book as an Advanced Readers Copy from Net Galley and sourcebooks in return for an honest review.

#blameitonthemistletoe #Beth Garrod #netgalley #romcom #young adult

Blame it on the Mistletoe

Blame it on the Mistletoe- 3 stars

By- Beth Garrod

Blame it on the Mistletoe tells the story of Holly and Elle. Holly is a British girl who is Christmas obsessed. She's currently recovering from a break up and is determined to have the Best Christmas Ever. Elle is an American social media influencer who needs to gain 15k followers or else she must delete her account. The two girls decide to swap places for the holidays and what unfolds is a lot of Christmas fun! Overall this book was very cute. Even though it's currently August the Christmas spirit shined through. It was interesting to see each girl grow through her experience of swapping places for the Christmas season. All of the side characters were a lot of fun and I felt they added nicely to the story. My biggest issue with the book, though, was that I kept forgetting which girl was which. They were both too similar for my liking...and with the constant POV swaps I would find myself having to remember who was who. I was also a little confused by Elle's status as a social influencer. She didn't appear to have much of a following (I know some of this is explained) and I really didn't understand why she had the followers she did. What exactly was her brand? And the whole plot with Elle's brother and grandmother didn't really add anything to the book. But like I said the story was very fun and the romance was sweet.

I was given this book in exchange for my honest opinion. Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for this ARC.

#blame it on the mistletoe #beth garrod #netgalley #net galley #sourcebooks #2ifbyseabrook book review #book review

Q&A with Beth Garrod

Happy Thursday, Book Dragons! I’m so ridiculously excited to be bringing you a Q&A with one of my favourite authors, Beth Garrod! Beth is the author of the Awkward series, Take a Chance on Me, All I Want For Christmas and most recently, Sister Switch. I highly recommend all of them, Take a Chance on Me is an excellent summer read, not forgetting Sister Switch! Thank you so much Simon and…

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#Beth Garrod #Bookish Fun #Middle Grade #Q&A #Simon and Schuster #Sister Switch

Review: Sister Switch by Beth Garrod

Finding funny, whimsical children’s books is always fun and I knew from the synopsis of this one that I would be in for a bit of a crazy ride. I haven’t read a Beth Garrod book before but I think she is known for writing socially awkward characters and I was looking forward to meeting some of them.

Erin and Lily Mavers are sisters with just 13 months between them but they couldn’t be more different. Erin is a straight A student with a love of rocks and drama while Lily is an aspiring writer with a love of cute boyband members and dogs. They bicker about most things and neither of them seems to really understand what it’s like to be the other. But then a trip to a strange hair salon called The Hairy Godmother leaves them with much more than new hairstyles -they’ve switched bodies and the Hairy Godmother is nowhere in sight! The race is on to find the elusive Hairy Godmother to switch them back before Erin has to impress a top blogger and Lily has to play Titania.

Erin and Lily’s relationship isn’t exactly in pieces before the body swap. They are very different but they also have an inherent sisterly bond with in-jokes and a deep love for each other. In fact, they are a very realistic sister pairing and I know that so many readers will instantly be able to relate to one of them or see their own sibling relationship in theirs.

Lily sees Erin as the golden child because she is very smart and academically-minded. She fails to see how great her own achievements are, such as writing a blog post that went viral, because they aren’t considered as important as her sister’s grades. This kind of sibling rivalry is present in almost every sibling relationship in the world, particularly when there is only two of you. I think it’s true that we don’t really see the hard parts of our sibling’s lives. We only tend to focus on what our parents praise and celebrate them for.

Of course, the body swap brings about a lot of funny scenes. Lily doesn’t study French but while she is in Erin’s body, she needs to attend Erin’s French lessons. That brings about this rather hilarious encounter with Erin’s French teacher. There are also a lot of not so funny parts where neither sister does a very good job of acting like the other one, which thoroughly confuses their friends and puts their sibling’s dreams in jeopardy. It certainly makes the reader desperate for the sisters to find The Hairy Godmother and get things sorted!

The girls’ dad is hilarious too. He is constantly doing something strange such as learning circus skills or practicing some kind of dance move. I feel like their dad’s personality is very British. If I didn’t realise already that this is a very British family, their dad’s eccentricities would confirm it for me. Both he and their mum are very supportive of both of their daughters which is really lovely to see. They perhaps don’t show their confusion enough about why their daughters are apparently behaving like each other rather than themselves but I like to think that they simply realise that their girls are at a weird age and are perhaps inspired by each other.

Agatha is The Hairy Godmother, a wise witch who doubles as a hairdresser. She sees that Erin and Lily need to learn what it’s really like to be in each other’s shoes and takes it upon herself to make that happen. I was fascinated with how she manages to appear and disappear so suddenly and the girls’ pursuit of her certainly made me feel like a kid again. I think I would love a whole Hairy Godmother series, where Agatha repairs relationships through body swaps and refuses to let up until both parties have learned something significant. I know that I’d gobble those books up easily.

Sister Switch is a very funny, whimsical read about stepping outside of yourself. Gaining a fresh perspective is something that we should all try to do in order to improve our empathic skills and ability to extend kindness beyond our immediate circle. I loved how this book teaches readers to do that through the medium of a highly relatable, witty story with some wonderful characters and friendships.

Sister Switch by Beth Garrod will be published by Simon & Schuster Children’s on 22nd July 2021.