A review by anna_wa
Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Before this review starts, I will make it clear that I usually only read Young Adult books and therefore you can take my review with a grain of salt. It's possible everything I say will just make you want to read it more, in which case, more power to you and I hope you like it.

I read this series in reverse: I read "Act Your Age Eve Brown" first because it featured an autistic couple, which is something we don't see enough in literature, then when I found out "Take A Hint Dani Brown" was about a bisexual woman I read that too, and throughout both of them Chloe was my favorite side character, so I was excited when I finally got her book in my hands.

And I did enjoy reading about Chloe, and Redford as well. In fact I enjoyed reading about them as individual people so much, that the romance fell flat for me. I remember reading someone else saying that "Act Your Age Eve Brown" had the most sex out of the entire series? Nah man, that award goes to this one. 

From the beginning of their relationship (or even before the beginning, really), Chloe and Redford are so lustful for each other that, to me, it was almost ridiculous. Now, I get it, you know what a person looks like long before you know anything about them as a person, but come on. The amount of boners Redford got, the amount of clit-boners(?) that Chloe got when they hadn't even talked to each other in a positive way was just ridiculous and, for me, a bit unbelievable.

For example, in the other two books, Talia Hibbert makes the readers wait until the book is half over before the two of them do the dirty. But in this book, on page 83 out of 369, we have Redford
waking up from a wet dream and masturbating over a Chloe fantasy in his head
. It was way too much too soon, especially after the pace I felt Hibbert had set with the other two books - that you learn who they are, and what they mean to each other, before any clothes are removed.

And even after they finally started developing romantic (not just sexual) feelings for each other, I found myself thinking "okay, but like, are they even friends?" multiple times. There are exceptions for sure. The motorcycle scene and the camping scene both tugged at my heartstrings and made me want more of THAT and less of... whatever the rest of their relationship was. But overall, like I said, the relationship felt flat.

I guess I wanted more of them being themselves. Like, I wanted to learn more over time about Red's ex-girlfriend, about Chloe's ex-man and ex-friends, about Chloe grappling with her fibromyalgia (I don't need the author to make her into an inspiration icon or anything like that, but just... honesty about how it made her feel, more than just one quote in the entire book), about Red grappling with his depression
(maybe we could have SEEN rather than been TOLD about his therapy sessions)
.

In other words, I feel like this book would have benefitted from being a general adult contemporary book instead of a romance book. If the romance had been a sidebar to Chloe's list and Redford's journey in his mental health and art. If there had been more friendship and less lust to this relationship (doesn't mean no lust at all, because they are only human, but again, a sidebar to their respective journeys).

I don't regret reading this, though, and I would like to thank Talia Hibbert for taking me outside my comfort zone - and for making a book where a disabled woman is considered sexually attractive. Because despite my personal feelings that the lust was overdone, there are not enough books where disabled bodies are considered sexually attractive, and we need more in the world. ♥
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