Get A Life, Chloe Brown

Our Review

Talia Hibbert’s GET A LIFE, CHLOE BROWN is the epitome of don’t judge a book by its cover, on more than one level.

The actual cover of the book, featuring a black woman and a white man, gives the impression that the premise of the book is an interracial relationship. Surprisingly, in a good way, the subject of race isn’t introduced until 200 pages into the book. With the current racial climate in the world, it was refreshing that race was almost a non-factor.

Another misconception comes in the first few pages of the novel as we are introduced to the dynamics between Chloe Brown and Redford Morgan. The author would have you believe this is a typical tale of a well-to-do woman who takes joy in looking down on the working-class man only to discover that she’s been judgmental all along and blah blah blah. This typical storyline has been overdone at this point.

Chloe Brown is tired of her well-meaning family constantly hovering over her, and she decides to move out on her own, with the intention of creating and crafting a new life. Her diagnosis of fibromyalgia leaves her in physical and mental distress most of the time and causes her to lose friends and a fiance. 

Spending most of her time alone in her new flat, she crafts a list of items to ensure she lives a more meaningful life. The list includes: go camping, have meaningful sex, and enjoy a drunken night out among other things. Scratching items off the list seems near impossible until she meets and spies on her building’s superintendent, Redford “Red” Morgan.

Red is a temporary superintendent until he can get his art career off the ground again. A previous relationship has given him a bad taste in his mouth when it comes to the elite. He incorrectly sizes up Chloe’s type, and the two exchange heated words every time they cross paths. However, when he catches her spying on him while he paints, he starts to see her for who she really is—a woman who prefers to suffer in silence and push people away to protect her heart.

Their relationship, from friends to something more, is a roller coaster of emotions that all readers will be able to relate to. Though there are several pages and passages that the story could do without, it is still an easy read with characters you are not likely to find anywhere else.