Into You

By: Jay Northcote

Narrated by: Hamish Long

Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

What do you do when the body you wake up in isn’t yours?

Olly and Scott promised to be best friends forever. They grew up on the same street, went to the same school, and did everything together. But one hot summer night, teenage experimentation caused hurt feelings and confusion, and their friendship was destroyed.

Four years later they’re both 18 years old and in their final term at school. Scott is a football star and Olly’s preparing for a main role in the school play. After a heated argument in the street - witnessed by their mysterious, elderly neighbor - they wake up the next morning stuck in each other’s bodies.

With no idea how to get back to normal, they have to co-operate in order to hide their secret. Spending time together rekindles their friendship, yet feelings run deeper for both of them. With the end of school fast approaching, the clock is ticking. Unless they discover how to change back, they could be stuck in the wrong bodies forever.

©2016 Jay Northcote (P)2020 Jay Northcote

A sweet coming from age YA romance!👬✨

This one had such a refreshing and an interesting premise.
I had such a blast listening to this one.
Olly and Scott story was very beautifully unravelled. I liked the shock and element of surprise they momentarily faced when they switched bodies and then the struggle of adapting to their lives. It was downright hilarious!
This one gave me Freaky Friday vibes but with a twist in the best way.

This was a sweet, friends to lovers, coming of age, YA romantic comedy with a feel good vibe.

Hamish Long did such a great job in narrating this one!

Imaginative Spin on Friends-to-Lovers Trope

"Into You" is an imaginative spin on the friends-to-lovers trope, with former childhood mates Olly and Scott having to navigate high school and each other after waking up inhabiting the other's body following an argument. Olly and Scott's story is a unique deep dive into their self-perceptions and how they view each other, literally and figuratively, that includes Scott coming to terms with his sexuality and true feelings for Olly. Their reconciliation from falling out years ago is gradual and heartfelt, which makes their HEA especially sweet.

Narrator Hamish Long is fantastic, as always, and has a youthful-sounding voice perfectly suited for the MCs here. His performance definitely added to my listening enjoyment.

The body swap premise is a lot to wrap one's mind around as a listener. With Olly and Scott's POVs being delivered in each other's established voice (so the voice matches the swapped physical appearance rather than the "trapped" character), I found myself having to concentrate on the story more than usual, particularly early on. I received this free review copy audio book by request and have left this honest review voluntarily.

Ollie and Scott are Perfect

I love all of Jay Northcote's books and Hamish does a brilliant job narrating them. Into You was one of my earliest reads by Jay and it was great re-reading it again with the revamped cover by Garrett Leigh :) This was a YA gay romance version of Freaky Friday and wonderfully enjoyable. Their neighbor, Miss Witchwood, surprises them one day after their ball flies into her yard. After making a weird statement, the boys shrug it off and don't think anymore of it. After all, they're childhood best friends and nothing will change that.

Fast forward a few years later and now the boys are in their final year of high school no longer best friends due a misunderstanding. Miss Witchwood has watched their estrangement over the past few years and decides to do something about it. The best way for the boys to discover the truth and revive their friendship would be for each person to walk a mile in the other's shoes. In a classic body-switch-a-room, Ollie and Scott wake up one morning and discover that they're in the other person's body. Not only are they freaked out but now they have to pretend to be the other person until they can find a way to switch back.

Going to school and and returning home are now awkward as they both get a personal view of how the other's family treats them. Ollie is shocked and angry to discover that Scott's father is a homophobic prick and Scott is jealous over the ease and loving support of Ollie's family. Along the way, both boys discover the true way to return to their bodies and gain courage in living their lives according to them and not social or family pressure. Loved this audiobook and will re-listen over and over again!

Excellent

Loved this one from Jay Northcote! It was a super fun novel that is pretty suited to older YA readers. I loved the Freaky Friday twist this book had and it was good from start to finish. Hamish Long does an excellent job narrating this one!

Great listen.

Now this is such an interesting read. I really like Olly and Scott's story. This is such an enjoyable twist on the friends to lovers trope. Jay Northcote does such a great job with the freaky Friday twist to the story just made such a fun and sweet read. Hamish Long does such a great job with this narration and just brings the story to life.

Loved this story

The narration was good, though the narrator has some pacing issues when he is narrating, though not while characters are speaking. I had to speed up quite a bit to get over that.
I really enjoyed the hint of magic in this story, it's almost a YA with little to no steam
When Olly ans Scott bump together after their falling out, it's a catalyst for growth for both of them. I really liked how each boy saw the 'other side', which in turn brought them closer.
It's a really sweet story, with former friends getting over their differences and a coming out.

Cute story

I really enjoyed the characters and the narration. There were moments where I had trouble keeping track of who was speaking but that didn't detract from the overall storyline.

Adorable body swapping romance

This book was so adorable, I want to roll it over and pet it's stomach!

Olly and Scott are BFFs all through their childhood, until a kiss at 14 confuses and ruins everything, leaving the boys angry and ignoring each other for years. At 18, in their final month of school, a minor accident and a small portion of magical help from a weird old neighbour, Mrs. Wychwood, leads them to being trapped in each others bodies and having to find a way to co-exist and work together to be themselves again.

The bodyswapping trope is fun and Jay Northcote does it right, with hilarious and cute results - and some very sweet and guilty masturbation scenes. But despite the magical undercurrent of the book, it is actually mainly a story about being true to yourself and finding out who you want to be.

Olly is out and proud and have been in love with Scott forever, still is, despite the mixed feelings and animosity between them after the kiss 4 years earlier. Scott on the other hand is a bit of a mess. Stuck in a life he really doesn't want, with a girlfriend he doesn't really like and A-level courses that doesn't interest him, but too afraid to find his way out of it.

Naturally, Scott is the one with the most character growth through the story, but Olly too does grow, if in more subtle ways. Now, I am generally not a HEA kind of girl when it comes to very young characters, as I have a hard time believing in that, but for these two, I would believe it.

Warmly recommended story and the narration was lovely too.

Into You

Olly & Scott
This was so different and so wonderful.
I loved that one; that characters knew each other growing up but grew apart. I know that seems sad but I think it needed to happen that way for the switch to happen and for each of the guys to see each other in a new way.
I like that they weren’t really judgmental of each but more than that they helped each other.
Communication was so huge with this book it was lovely to listen to and to follow. The writing is so smart.

I think the switch and the re-found friendship not only gave Scott the confidence he needed to be himself but to also tell his parents. Even if he knew one parent might not accept him. I loved his mother and how she was his ally right from the start and the father while not 100% on board listened to his wife and becomes the father his son needed him to be.

I really liked the narration Hamish is a favorite of mine and his accent I mean come on delicious.

Loved Ollie and Scott!!

This was unique!! Ollie and Scott were best friends friends from childhood, but something happened that stopped that. One day they woke up and had switched bodies, reminded me of Freaky Friday only it lasted longer and had a witch! This was fantastic!! Hamish Long did an fantastic job with the narration, he mastered each characters voice and personality!! Great job!!

Fun story

I don’t normally listen to YA stories, but since the bulk of the book takes place with them being 18, I thought I’d give it a go. I knew Jay Northcote would weave his personal touches throughout, and he did not disappoint. He created two young characters that were easily likable, and had more to them that meets the eye. They are the kind of characters you feel like you know, and it’s a given that you root for them. On top of that, he adds a touch of magic by having them switch bodies for a while. Watching them learn things about the other one, that they normally wouldn’t, and see things from each other’s POV was really interesting. I felt like the story was well written, and despite being in the fantasy category, it wasn’t over the top. There was a touch if realism to it, which I really enjoyed. Hamish Long does a great job bringing this story to life, through his voice. It was easy to tell who was talking when, and you could feel their emotions through his performance.

A clever, thought provoking story, brilliantly executed by Hamish Long

Regardless of what he writes, Jay Northcote always manages to touch on important issues which affect people in their everyday lives whilst still writing enjoyable love stories with HEAs. On the face of it, the premise of INTO YOU appears fairly light and fluffy; a mysterious elderly lady with a black cat, a long misunderstanding between two best friends and a body swap. This premise has been done before but rarely have I enjoyed such a story as much as I did this one.

Olly and Scott had been close from their early days, promising they would stay friends no matter what, until a misunderstanding separates them. They’ve reluctantly got on with their lives, avoiding each other so far until a confrontation in the road near their homes is witnessed by their elderly neighbour. Fate is given the thumbs up to sort out their differences once and for all.

Enough is enough, these young men were always supposed to be together so they’re given a fait accompli - or at least that’s how it seems to them - when they wake up in the body of each other. As they struggle to cope with hiding their secret, each must try to behave like the other whilst never knowing if the situation will ever be reversed. Obviously joint cooperation is key to the boys successfully hiding the situation from their parents’, teachers and friends. As a result they find the friendship… and more, that they’d thought lost for ever.

This is a sweet story of finding lost friendship and a love that Olly has always felt but that Scott needs to wake up to and learn to be comfortable with.

My head was reeling with how the story plays out, I had to keep pausing to make sure I was in the correct mind/body whilst listening, so how Hamish Long kept it straight whilst performing, I have no idea. He’s an extremely talented young performer and it shows very clearly in his performance of Jay Northcote’s lovely story. Olly has a lighter, sweeter voice but he’s in Scott’s larger, athletic body and has to interact with Scott’s football friends so we hear him with Scott’s voice. But when the friends are interacting alone together, they’re using their own voices. Conversely, when Scott is interacting with the drama group he’s using Olly’s voice but is internally ‘worrying’ in Scott’s voice. These are not criticisms, I’m merely trying to explain how both the author and his narrator did such a fabulous job with a very complicated but clever storyline. I loved this book, the performance and everything about it. Well done Jay Northcote and Hamish Long.

You’ll want to listen more than once

Oli and Scott were fated to be more than just best friends for life. But sometimes fate needs a helping hand.

They had been close friends since kindergarten, right up to the point where Oli told Scott that he was gay and Scott wasn’t. Oli, in an act of self preservation, cut short their friendship because the hope of them being anything more was too much to deal with. So these one time best friends lives diverged and they had little to do with each other for their remaining time in school. Right up to the point when each of them woke up wearing the other ones body.

Forced to cooperate with each other to get through their lives and school until they can work out how to change back. Can they rekindle their lost friendship? Or is there any hope of something more?

I loved this audiobook. I’d go as far as saying that it’s the best one I’ve heard all year so far. I usually listen on my commute to and from work, but after driving home listening to the beginning, I spent the rest of the evening listening to a great story unfold. Now, nearly two months later I’m re-listening to the story at my usual commuting pace. Though I have found myself regularly sitting in the car until the chapter ends.

I just couldn’t help but love these two characters and the situation that they were in. The story was so well written and narrated that I got totally absorbed.

If audible allowed listeners one ten star rating per year, this would undoubtedly be mine.

Intriguing and sweet

This was different from Jay’s usual books in that there was a magical twist. It worked really well as the body swap allowed the characters to see things from another perspective. I love second chance stories and this one delivered on all fronts. It was very funny in places, had just enough angst but finished sweetly. I loved it and will definitely re-listen.

The narrator is one of my favourites. He is so good at having different voices and I just love listening to his voice. He makes it very easy to follow the story.

Loved the story, loved the performance!

I am a huge fan of Hamish Long's audio performances, and I love Jay Northcote's stories, so accepting a copy of Into You for review was a not at all a hard decision. 😊

I loved this story about two friends who kind of became enemies and then find their way back to friends who eventually become lovers. They get some help from a mysterious older neighbor lady who added a bit of mystery and magic to the story.

Into You is different from anything else I've read by Jay Northcote. It's a cute body-swap story with some added conflict because Scott's father is homophobic. I haven't read all of Jay's backlist so I don't know for sure if he's written anything else like this; if he hasn't, I think he should! 😊

Beautiful,sweet body swap romance.

I loved this and I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending it!
A beautifully written, expertly narrated delight!
I love Jay's style of writing so this was going to be an instant hit for me,add in Hamish's beautiful narration and it's perfect.
I love both Olly and Scott and I found Hamish's accents for the boys and each one of the other characters,in this story, to be perfect,as always.
If you want a really lovely sweet body swap romance then I highly recommend you dive in and immerse yourself in this gorgeous sweet story.

Mix-up teen rom-com

This is a fluffy teen take on the body-exchange romantic comedy. Two boys who grew up as best friends stop being friends over what's basically a misunderstanding. They're both hurt by this and secretly wish they were still friends, and maybe more, but neither know that the other feels the same.

Some sort of magic makes them change bodies at age 18 and they have to live the other boy's life, including navigating a girlfriend, frienda, and parents. I like that they grow and learn from this experience, not only in regards of their understanding of each other, but they grow as human beings as well.

Hamish Long is great at distinguishing between the voices, I knew exactly who's head I was in at all times. His narration added to the story.

Another brilliant romance story

OK, I knew this would be good, as Jay doesn't write bad stories, but I wasn't expecting the magical twist and teen angst. Great plot and superb narration with distinctive character voices.

Loved this cute story!

It was both funny and very sweet, and Olly and Scott are both adorable and I loved reading about them resolving their differences and, in Scott0s case, coming to terms with who he really is.
A feel-good story granted to put a smile on your face!
Hamish Long is always a plus and he nails the narration every time. Even in this body swap story, it was always very easy to follow the plot.

Twists and turns

This is a delightful tale about two lads who were best mates, then they weren't and now they are best mates again and boyfriends as well. The story, with it's original twists and turns, is very well written with humour and a dose of magic included. Just right for these troubling times.

I love how redeemable everyone is...even Scott's homophobic father. It is great to see an effort being made to be more understanding rather than a family breaking down. This is one part that really stands out for me, though there are other instances too.

Hamish Long is one of my favourite narrators. He is wonderful here with the adult Olly and Scott's voices, and then he has to make them younger too! As usual, he brings it all together perfectly.