Thoughtful Romance: A Review of Get a Life, Chloe Brown

Hilarious and poignant, sexy and satisfying, Talia Hibbert’s Get a Life, Chloe Brown is an uplifting, charismatic novel, made all the better by actress Adjoa Andoh’s expert audiobook reading. (Seriously, listening to her voice the characters—priceless. I highly recommend the audiobook experience.) After a close encounter with death, Chloe Brown, a young woman with fibromyalgia who has been living at home makes a list of tasks that will result in her getting a life. Her list includes various items, from moving out on her own to having amazing, meaningless sex to going camping. When Chloe completes item number one (move out on her own), she meets Redford Morgan, the superintendent of her apartment building. A redheaded painter covered in tattoos, Red is the nicest person in the world—except to Chloe. The two interact in jibes and mutual rudeness until the day that Red rescues Chloe from a tree she climbed to rescue a stray cat. From then on, Chloe and Red’s relationship evolves into a friendship fraught with sexual tension. Red, upon finding out about Chloe’s ‘get a life’ list, offers to help her complete it, and Chloe, once realizing that Red needs a website to relaunch his painting career, promises to build him a website in exchange. As Red and Chloe work on their own issues and learn to be vulnerable in relationships again, they begin to love and uplift each other in their struggles. A sweet, pure romance blossoms between them, and they learn that love is about filling in another person’s gaps, about helping the other person where they need it.

One of the many things I loved about Chloe and Red’s relationship is their support and understanding of each other. In conversations about their troubled pasts, they acknowledge the other’s pain and validate their struggles. Of course, it is these very struggles and inner wounds that lead to Chloe and Red’s relationship conflicts, but even then, I was so impressed with the depth of the characters and their ability to truly apologize to one another, forgive, and make amends. In the end, Chloe and Red help each other accomplish their goals—goals that, like Chloe’s list, are revised and revisited, redrawn and reimagined and re-examined as the search for fulfillment deepens. What is more pure in love than two people coming together to support each other as they work to better themselves?

Talia Hibbert’s writing is utterly believable, human, down-to-earth, and well-rounded; I bet it will charm you and bring you to tears as it did me. Hibbert incorporates characters’ intersectional identities with poise and grace, and her writing always serves to lead to a deeper understanding of people, lending humanity to the characters. I cried on multiple occasions while listening to this audiobook and laughed out loud more times than I can count. This witty, hilarious novel will warm your heart and inspire you toward love. It is one of the more sensitive and meaningful romances that I have ever read and one of my favorite reads of 2020 by far. Whether reading the physical novel or listening to Adjoa Andoh’s bitingly funny and apt voices for the different characters, experiencing Get a Life, Chloe Brown is worth your time.

(By the way, I enjoyed listening to Perfume Genius' album "Set My Heart on Fire Immediately" when thinking about this book.)

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Listen to the audiobook:

Libro.fm

Audible.com

Read the book:

Bookshop.org

Amazon.com