Book Review: Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

‘Get A Life, Chloe Brown’ was published in 2019. It is the first book in Talia Hibbert’s Brown Sisters Series, a romance trilogy following the three Brown sisters, Chloe, Danika and Eve. All three of these books are available to read via Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited subscription.

Chloe Brown is disabled. She has a chronic condition called fibromyalgia, something I am familiar with due to friends having the condition. I saw a lot of their struggles in this book and it was incredibly refreshing to read a story where not only was this condition not stigmatised and demonised but Chloe’s boundaries and limits were respected by her small circle.

I really enjoyed this book. My friends had recommended that I read the series and I was completely blown away by the way Red and Chloe’s relationship grew from begrudging acquaintances to friends to lovers and how considerate and positive this relationship was. Reading the world from Chloe’s perspective and the way that she maintains a sense of control over her day with her various planners and to-do lists was so lovely.

Hibbert really sets the standard for her love interests with Redford Morgan, a man who has been vulnerable, mistreated by an ex but wants to heal, wants to grow, wants to recover from what he went through. A man that goes to therapy is a big green flag, since it is still incredibly stigmatised for men to need to go to therapy. Wanting or needing a therapist isn’t something that ought to be laughed at, demonised or hidden, and I like that Red didn’t beat around the bush when Chloe suggested therapy to help him navigate what happened to him, and told her upfront and unreservedly that he had just started.

As someone who isn’t a big fan of the obligatory third act breakup in a romance novel, I was relieved that the fallout was a simple miscommunication that was remedied reasonably quickly. There’s something really raw and real about the idea of a couple acknowledging that they both acted selfishly in their own best interests and neither wanted to stop and listen, and in the future, they had to get better at that. Don’t get me wrong, it was sad to see the miscommunication and the immediate aftershock, dramatic irony really rattles you when you almost don’t want the characters to trip up on the hurdles ahead, but it was really rewarding to see how this changed their relationship for the better.

I really enjoyed ‘Get A Life, Chloe Brown’, I am excited to continue the rest of the series, because this book left a delightful amount of guessing about what Chloe’s sisters are like in their own lives since Chloe is incredibly insular. It was very clever and certainly has me wanting to know more about Dani Brown and Eve Brown in the later books!