Get a Life, Chloe Brown - Talia Hibbert

Trigger Warnings:

Abusive Relationships, Chronic Pain, Medical Drug Usage, Near-Death Experience, Racism

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Micro Plotline:

Meet Chloe, our prim and proper web designer, who just moved out of her family mansion and has a list to get her life back on track. She deals heavily with chronic pain, and her building superintendent isn't making it any easier for her. He seems to be nice and all smiles with everyone but her, with his damned tattoos and sunset golden hair.

Meet Red, our lost artist, who is on his way to get his life back. And as he does that, his friend Vik has given him the responsibility to be the building superintendent during the day, and he lets his feelings out at the canvas at night. He finds Chloe to be a stuck-up posh girl, out here looking down on everyone...even him, and that seems to bother him quite a lot.

As they navigate their way through life, their path converges more and more as Chloe enlists Red to help with her list and to teach her to rebel and be bad (well, he got to be bad with all his tattoos, and the big bad motorcycle, right?), and in return, she will help make him a professional website for his art and maintain it for him.

The more time they spend together, they begin to realize that they might be each other's missing puzzle pieces. Chloe might not be so stuck up, and Red might not be so horrible after all.

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Review:

Let me begin by saying, I sobbed happy tears for a day after finishing this book. I was just a happy little bean hugging the book, okay?

The characters were really well done, I could feel their vibes radiating off the narrative. One more thing I really loved about the characters and their chemistry was, they decided to have grown-up conversations instead of just overreacting all the time, and when they did overreact, they weren't afraid to apologize and acknowledge that they messed up.

The dual perspective was really interesting as we got to know what was going on in both their heads in the same situation, and it felt like we were making their decisions with them. This really helped the element of the "enemies to lover" trope. I really love it when we get to know why the main characters were enemies in the first place, and how (and why) did they change their attitude towards each other. I was really satisfied with how it was taken care of in this book.

Chloe deals with chronic pain and that is portrayed really well here (Sidenote: we really need to have more of chronic pain representation in books). She lost a lot of people in her life, but I applaud the fact that Chloe's family was ever so supportive and never gave up, till they finally found out what was wrong with her. And the way Red handled her condition was heart-wrenchingly tender. The rep was well done, the raw emotions coming through, and the way it was dealt with was really good.

Red dealt with emotional, mental, and physical abuse in his last relationship with a socialite named Pippa and has everlasting repercussions from it. He left everything because of how she made him feel like he was nothing. I liked how that was handled, and how his feelings were validated and normalized, and how the character grew and evolved from it.

The way they filled up their gaps was adorable. The writing was really easy to follow and flow with. I could really visualize each page as I read through it, basking in their glorious angst, the banter was just perfect and I couldn't ask for anything more. The whole book just made me feel so warm inside.

The ending was quite predictable and a teensy bit rushed, but still, I enjoyed it quite a bit. It broke my heart into a million pieces and made them shine like mini rainbows as everything just fell into place in the end.

Overall, please do pick this up, and let's gush about it together, okay?

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Rating:

5 / 5

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Recommendation Level:

Full Moon