Thoughts: Get a Life, Chloe Brown

Get a Life, Chloe Brown has been super hyped on my corners of the book-net, and so even though I don’t usually enjoy contemporary or even go out of my way to find it I thought I’d give it a go since Romance is high on my list of ‘easy to read’ right now.

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert 

Source: Library/Libby Checkout
TL;DR: Contemporary Romance Readers will likely enjoy this

The Thoughts:

• I’m just gonna lead with my biggest issue with this book to get it out of the way. The first third, maybe half of the book was cute. And as soon as the sex started things got… weird. I tend to skim these scenes anyway but even skimming through them I felt like our male protagonist when from one type of person to a very different type of person. He changed from a fairly normal, calm individual to someone who acted weirdly alpha, in a what (having stopped to read closer) I thought was, well, disingenuous. It almost felt as if it was forced on him, perhaps our author wanted him to feel ‘sexier’ than he was by giving him a very forward, alpha, dirty talking persona in the sex scenes – but frankly it didn’t come across for me. It felt very fake, even for a romance novel. There was no consistency after that.
  Chloe, sure, she seemed fine. But it was enough to make it feel so jarring and confusing I was thrown out of the story. From there on I wasn’t sure what to think. I don’t mind the dirty talk, I even usually like Alpha type characters (male or female) and still I felt like Red in the streets was one person and Red in the sheets was ‘Romance Hero A’. I was disappointed, honestly I kind of wish I’d entirely skipped the sex scenes so I would have never noticed.
  I’m also pretty sure I haven’t read the word ‘pussy’ used seriously, so many times, perhaps ever.
• Alright, that off my chest, there were a lot things I enjoyed (pretty much everything else). I liked the characters – besides the unnecessarily ridiculous sex scenes – they felt like real people in a way a lot of contemporary romances don’t for me. When they weren’t actively having sex the dialogue and interactions were well done. There were more than a handful of times I laughed out loud. We did spend a lot of somewhat repetitive time in their heads but that seems to be fairly normal for contemporary romance that I’ve seen.

He’d rather ride naked through Trinity Square than get himself wrapped up in yet another mess. He’d rather eat a damned rock. He’d rather— “So,” she asked softly, “will you help me?” And he, Mister Shit for Brains, said, “Yeah.”

• I was worried the use of chronic illness and trauma from past relationship would turn into soap box moments or overwhelm the story but again, it was handled extremely well. It felt natural, and when brought up in the relationship, very sweetly handled. 

So I’m doing it for you because that’s how people should behave; they should fill in each other’s gaps.

• The cat was a delight and a joy. Which is actually saying something since sometimes fictionalized pets end up being unbelievable. There was just enough cat that I believed the cat. I realize this sounds absurd but if you have a cat, you’ll understand.

On the coffee table, Smudge was delicately licking his own arsehole in flagrant convention of the established house rules…

So wrap-up on my thoughts. I’d recommend this to people who enjoy contemporary romance, and definitely to those who are looking for the type of representation this provides. I think the inconsistency with Red was maybe me? So give it a shot, it doesn’t seem to have affected anyone else that I’ve seen yet in reviews so perhaps I’m the outlier.