Switcheroo: A Novel

By Olivia Goldsmith

Book Overview

Sylvie Schiffer at 40 has a life most women dream about: a gorgeous home in the exclusive suburb of Shaker Heights, two perfect teenage children, a successful husband with a lucrative luxury car dealership. Sylvie has everything, it seems, but what she wants most: passion and romance -- moonlit cruises, holding hands, gazing at the stars. "When you're married," Sylvie sighs, "you don't even get kissed on the mouth." With building the business, raising the babies and creating their home, she and Bob hadn't found much time to focus on love. But now that the twins are off to college and the business is blooming, Sylvie is sure they will make their marriage bloom. So she believes until one day she does the laundry and notices those incriminating credit card receipts. Her husband has found romance, but it isn't with her. Bob is having an affair. Shocked and enraged, Sylvie fantasizes about a bullet to the leg (just to make Bob lame) -- followed by a hefty settlement. Her mother begs her to calm down: Her marriage is worth saving. Sylvie's having none of that. Out for blood, she sets off to confront Marla, the other woman. What she finds, however, is not what she expects. Looking at Marla is like gazing back in time: Except for 10 years and 15 pounds, Marla could be her twin. Marla has the best of Bob's love -- flowers, hot sex, breathy phone calls, candlelit dinner -- yet she admits to Sylvie that she lacks the thing she wants most: a husband and home of her own. "When you're single," Marla sighs, "you have to smell good 24 hours a day." Going beyond revenge, Sylvie hatches a brilliant scheme to make them both winners and bring Bob to his knees. But will they end up with what they want or walk away empty-handed and broken-hearted? No one defines modern love, work and sexual warfare better than New York Times bestselling author Olivia Goldsmith. In her most surprisingly ingenious novel yet, she once again speaks as the voice for her gender when she points out a truth not universally acknowledged until now: All wives yearn for the romance of being a mistress and all mistresses yearn for the security of being a wife.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060175680
• ISBN13: 9780060175689
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.9" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Reprint

This is just a reprinted version of Goldsmith's Switcheroo with a new title and cover.

Cat fights were never this quirky

I had seen the movie "First Wives Club" a few years before and enjoyed it for entertainment's sake (save for those hoaky song and dance routines). I skimmed over a few of Olivia Goldsmith's books but as this one took place in my hometown of Cleveland (as I always thought they were set in New York) this one made me look twice. I'm certainly glad I did as this made me roar with laughter. While I was expecting another woman scorned story, this made you laugh and laugh with some unexpected twists and turns. Our heroin is Sylvie, a middle aged housewife with a seemingly ordinary life. Something has been nagging her lately, something's not right. At first she thinks her unease is due to the fact that she is adjusting to a house without kids (as her kids are off in college), but it's something else. She discovers that her husband, Bob, is having an affair and is devistated. Instead of taking out her wrath on her husband, she confronts "the other woman". The other woman is a bubblehead by name of Marla, but Slyvie is shocked to find out that she is actually a younger version of herself. In a feat almost never undertaken by any writer of fiction let alone real life (with the possible exception of John Derrik and all his gorgeous wives), Sylvie and Marla become friends. In a hilarious plot to get her revenge out on Bob, Sylvie proposes that she and Marla trade places. Thanks to some plastic surgery and wardrobe changes with only Sylvie's mother, Mildred, in on the scheme, they switch. It's one mishap after another as they try to not just concentrate on their plot against Bob, but try to live as the other. This is a hilrious screwball comedy on one hand and a commentary on our wants, needs and gets. Mildred, Slyvie's mother, is a scream as she becomes the unexpected mediator in the plot trying to keep Marla in line ("You can't go out to the country club! You'll be the Cher of Shaker Heights!") and Slyvie from being discovered. As the reader you don't expect to like someone who your husband is cheating on, but you end up liking Marla because she might be dumb and she might be promiscuous, but she and Slyvie somehow manage to be friends in the midst of this disaster. Slyvie especially is liked because you feel her disappointment as well as her need for jealous revenge, but how she somehow achieves it all. This is a tale about getting the things you want then not wanting what you've got, and learning that happiness is something that must be worked at not given. Slyvie says to Marla that she wishes she were her, as Marla gets all the excitement and romance and adventure. Marla says to Slyvie that she wishes she were her, as she gets all the comfort and security and family. In changing places, they see that with these things comes other fallbacks. While Slyvie is enjoying all the romance and enthusiasm that Bob hadn't shown her in years, she is without so much. She finds living as a single person lonely and misses her kids. Marla enjoys a

Very Good Read

Sylvie Crandell Schiffer thinks she has everything, the perfect house, great husband, and great children. There is only one thing she wants, she wants to find romance again with her husband Bob. There is one problem, Bob has been acting distant lately and has had no time for her. It gets even worse when Bob gets Sylvie a car she does not want or need for her fortieth birthday.The next day Sylvie dunks the car into the pool and Bob acts unconcerned. This gets Sylvie thinking and she realizes why Bob has been acting the way he does. He is having an affair.Sylvie goes to confront Bob's mistress and finds something strange. The girl (Marla) could be a dead ringer for Sylvie. This gets Sylvie thinking and she comes up with a plan to get even with Bob and maybe-just maybe get Bob back-Switch Places with Marla.The fun begins when Sylvie and Marla actually do switch and all of the adventures and misadventures they have being each other until the very last scene after Thanksgiving dinner.

Funny

If I've read a funnier book, I don't remember. It made me laugh out loud! That never happens! It's impossible to be in a bad mood after reading this book. I highly recommend it!

Far-Fetched but Wonderful!!!!!!

This book was fab!!! I could hardly wait to go home at night to read it!! It is a little unreal for sure, but sometimes that's what makes a book fun. I would have done the same thing if I was in Sylvie's shoes. Make him pay!!!! This was another hit for Olivia and I give it a thumb's up!!!!!