REVIEW

After my little spin listening to contemporary romance novels, I was ready for more books in this rather unknown genre (to me). And what better book than THE romance book that was sweeping across bookstagram. Walking into Get a Life, Chloe Brown was a weird experience because I was partly hesitant about the hype surrounding this series while also battling the thought that this genre is great for audio books, not physical books.

Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised by just how well this book was written. Talia is a master at dialogue, effortlessly keeping us intrigued by the natural feel of her conversations and human interactions. I was always excited to read through both perspectives because our characters felt so fleshed out and real; like you'd run into someone just like Red or Chloe while visiting the grocery store.

However, Chloe took some getting used to at first. She's not the damsel in distress and she's not the girl next door that's going to blush every time young Red walks by. I could see Talia try to make this an enemies to lovers trope (which it is) but there were parts of this book that leaned towards Chloe being the enemy here, while poor Red just happened to get the brunt of it. And that didn't sit well with me.

It's this unfortunate character flaw that made the first half of this book tolerable, to put it lightly. Despite Talia's beautiful writing and dialogue, I found that the book started off slow and had way too many unnecessary scenes. Only once we reach the halfway mark, the story and romance finally takes off and morphs into a cute bundle of fluttery butterflies.

Once we've established that these two characters heart one another, we finally get to experience the magic of a Talia Hibbert book. It's fun and lighthearted, and the characters don't feel like they're forcing chemistry. And to make things even better, Talia never mentions Chloe's weight. She's just a character in this book and she happens to be curvy. 

As a curvy girl myself, who has never felt properly represented in a book, I was more than thrilled to experience this kind of inclusion. Most of the books that have a curvy character usually makes the characters weight the focal point of the story. Oh, look at this curvy girl that overcame her bullies and insecurities and also landed the hot guy despite being fat.

Ugh.

I was so tired of these types of books, which is why I steered cleared for most of my reading journey. But, with new thinkers and diverse opinions entering the book world, I can see the future of inclusive books better and I like what I see. 

Rating: 4 stars.

Book Description:

Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion. The next items?

• Enjoy a drunken night out.
• Ride a motorcycle.
• Go camping.
• Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
• Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.
• And... do something bad.

But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job.

Redford ‘Red’ Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than ten-thousand Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit.

But when she enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. Like why he clearly resents Chloe’s wealthy background. And why he never shows his art to anyone. And what really lies beneath his rough exterior…