2026 Booker Prize Longlist: Switzy

by jenp27 on September 16, 2026

Next up for panel is Switzy by Emma Cline. This book brings us to the home stretch in our reviews. Five of our panel read this nominee and here are our reviews…

Emma Cline is an American author best known for her bestselling debut, The Girls, and her second novel, The Guest. Her writing is atmospheric, psychologically sharp, and often explores the darker sides of human relationships. She also has a knack for creating characters who make you feel just a little uncomfortable.

Book Synopsis from Booker website: A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. The notebook in his jacket pocket is filled with familiar phrases, urgent reminders to himself, but he struggles to recognise his own handwriting. A mystery, among many mysteries. The world, once so knowable, has been rendered inscrutable.

This is what David knows: Cody, his assistant, asleep in the seat next to him, will shepherd him along the voyage. A stopover in London. Dinner with his adult daughter. A meeting in France with an old friend, estranged for decades.

His final destination is Zurich.

David glides through hotel rooms and airports and foreign cities, running out the clock on his mortal life. His grasp on the present slips away, and the past rushes in: the Sunday roasts of childhood. The stiff clothes meant only for church. A summer at a school friend’s house. The losses and missteps that punctuate a life.

As David’s arrival in Zurich looms, an exquisitely rendered portrait of an unravelling mind emerges, both darkly humorous and profoundly moving. Hypnotic and startlingly original, Switzy probes the depths of human consciousness, revealing what a man is left with when the accomplishments and compromises that have defined him, and the illusions he’s relied on, vanish.

Tracy’s Thoughts: Emma Cline is kind of a chameleon- the last books I’ve read from her were nothing like this. I expected a thriller, or a mind bender, and this is not that at all. This was straightforward- a man reflecting on his past and unable to remember his present. Saying his goodbyes and headed to his final destination.

I liked the writing. Cline is great at characters. I wish the editing had been better. The daughter’s sidetrack and the bathtub scene probably weren’t needed, as well as some of the exchanges with the assistant. But the regrets were real, even if the memories were unreliable. I’m not sure why this was selected for the long list- I’ve read better books dealing with Alzheimer’s this year than the ones (!) on this list. But it was okay.

Writing quality: 4/5
Originality: 2.5/5
Character development: 3/4
Plot development: 2/4
Overall enjoyment: 1/2
Total: 12.5/20

Nicole’s Thoughts: Switzy for the euthanizty …. Yep. The only lighthearted aspect of the book is the title. I had hopes for this book, unwarranted as it turns out. The first half of the book was utterly mundane.

Could the male lead be just the slightest bit likable or empathy inducing? Could anybody in the book be? Maybe we are all just supposed to hate the rich even though we are spending 350 pages reading about a rich person?

About half-way the book went from mundane to morose, but also got more engaging. Also, not. Have editors just peaced out? There’s a brief and I’m telling you brief, out of context, contributing nothing to the story, allusion that the daughter may not be who we think she is. Just there, floating around like a Jack in the Box bag in the middle of a lake. Never referenced again.

It was ultimately impossible not to get sucked in at the end and it was friggen sad, and I resented the tears. I didn’t like the book, the characters, or the subject matter. The writing was good, there were some funny lines, and some clever uses of language. As we say in corporate America – The juice was not worth the squeeze.

Writing quality: 4/5
Originality: 3/5
Character development: 2/4
Plot development: 2/4
Overall enjoyment: 0/2
Total: 11/20

Anita’s Thoughts: Emma Cline’s writing is for me even if this story really wasn’t. It’s hard to read a book about dying and regret and feel like you “liked” it in the traditional sense. But I was engaged because Cline’s style somehow has escalating suspense built into it even when the ending is readily predictable. I also appreciate that she has tackled a hard topic (medically assisted suicide) and one I feel strongly deserves attention, political and otherwise, here in the U.S.

Writing quality: 5/5
Originality: 4/5
Character development: 3/4
Plot development: 2/4
Overall enjoyment: 1/2
Total: 15/20

Jen’s Thoughts: I don’t have too much more to add here than what my prior panelists mentioned. Certainly an interesting premise for the book and I liked that the author took us through cognitive decline from the perspective of the afflicted person. Sadly, I was mostly bored. Whereas Nicole shed some tears, I mostly felt nothing. Perhaps I’m dead inside.

Writing quality: 3/5
Originality: 3/5
Character development: 3/4
Plot development: 3/4
Overall enjoyment: 1/2
Total: 13/20

Lisa’s Thoughts: This book just pulled me along right through to the end. By coincidence, I started reading it in, well, Zürich. Then I finally realized that Switzy meant Switzerland. This one clearly belongs to the unreliable narrator genre – unreliable due to dementia. It’s not that I liked the main character, as he was clearly an ass even before the dementia started. But something about the clarity of this book —in contrast to many of the others on the long list— felt refreshing. He went on a lot of detours in his mind. I liked how these were lyrical and repetitive in a way. It just rang true to me.

Writing quality: 5/5
Originality: 4/5
Character development: 2/4
Plot development: 3/4
Overall enjoyment: 2/2
Total: 16/20

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