ceallaighsbooks 's review for:

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

5.0

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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“You think this is a big deal because, no offense, you’ve had a lot of people in your life who claimed to care about you but didn’t act like it. That’s not me. I can cook, and right now, you can’t. So I’m doing it for you because that’s how people should behave; they should fill in each other’s gaps. Don’t think about it too hard.”

TITLE—Get A Life, Chloe Brown

AUTHOR—Talia Hibbert

PUBLISHED—2019

GENRE—romance

SETTING—a city in England (maybe London I can’t remember if it specified…)

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—chronic illness (fibromyalgia), dating & relationships, disability & social navigation, internalized ableism, trauma from toxic/abusive relationships (romantic/friends, etc.), steamy sex

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

STORY/PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

BONUS ELEMENT/S—Chronic illness rep; also this book was so funny🤣 

PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“How shitty a lot of people must be to her, the way she acted sometimes. He’d seen how people treated his mum, after all, because she was a diabetic. Like being unwell was a crime or a scam or a self-indulgence.”

The premise of this book was so cute! Everything I know about the romance genre is from writing classes I’ve taken that discuss it so I’m only a little bit familiar with the theoretical tropes and traditional story elements of the genre but I thought that Hibbert really seemed to use these elements solely in service to her particular story than just the genre’s expectations so that was immediately something I appreciated about the book. It was a masterfully told story more so than just one of a genre… IMO/FMP.

Actually this was my first ever adult romance novel! And it was so fun! I almost wish my first romance book or even my first Talia Hibbert book wasn’t one that felt SO personal 😂 only because I found the story and the characters SO RELATABLE that I realized that at times I was projecting A LOT of my own experiences on to both the disabled MC and her love interest like for some reason more than I usually do while reading fiction so it just got to be a lot at some points 😅 even though overall I really did feel like this is a very lovely, uplifting read, and probably not as heavy as it felt like at times to *me*… but idk! Maybe this is considered a heavy romance novel I literally know nothing about the genre—this is my first romance book ever actually except for two YA books… but those treated heavy-ish themes too so idk I obviously have no idea what I’m talking about. 🙈🤣 But I am excited to both read more romance and more by Talia Hibbert—especially the rest of this series! 🥰

“He studied her for a moment as if her skin were translucent, and he could peer inside her head if only the light hit her just right. She felt uncomfortably like the light was hitting her just right.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

TW // chronic illness, trauma from abusive relationships, HP reference (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—

• more Talia Hibbert
• How to Find a Princess, by Alyssa Cole—TBR
• You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty, by Akwaeke Emezi—TBR