Check out on Goodreads | Buy on Amazon Genres: Romance, Contemporary Romance
Series: The Brown Sisters #1
Publisher: Avon
Source: My shelves
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 six directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamourous 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…
I’ve had Get a Life, Chloe Brown since it released in late 2019 and have only been more and more eager to read it since the release of books two and three – which seem to be even more popular and well-liked! I think it’s safe to say that I’m completely OBSESSED with this couple and this story.
The two characters had such an incredible relationship. They disliked each other in the beginning, but quickly grew out of that into a soft, sweet friendship. The “let’s make a deal” trope is always a goodie, but it was especially wonderful in this case because it was the catalyst to their relationship (friendship and romantic), but remained in the background and didn’t become baggage or make things angsty.
“You, sir, are a menace. A menace to good and decent society, and to noble, chaste women such as myself—” She might have been insulted at how hard he laughed if she wasn’t giggling herself.
Chloe Brown is a disabled heroine with fibromyalgia, a representation I hadn’t read before. I didn’t find anything confirming that this is an #ownvoices rep for Chloe’s illness, but the acknowledgments makes me believe that it is in some way. Nevertheless, I learned I had a few incorrect preconceived notions about chronic illness and fibromyalgia that this book helped correct, and I’m grateful to it for that. Redford Morgan, the artistic giant ginger hero, did not have the same problem. I adored how he took care of Chloe, but never attempted to take away her independence. There’s a careful line there, and it was gracefully and effortlessly toed. The representation in this book is just flawlessly effortless in every way.
Red and Chloe just had such a healthy, stable relationship. This was no flash in the pan, and it wasn’t a slow burn either, but their relationship was built on a solid foundation of trust, affection, friendship, respect, (sarcasm,) and care, and it was honestly beautiful. Their relationship was so sweet and their banter hilarious. Every piece of dialogue between these two was meaningful, whether it was poignant and moving, or witty conversational gambits. They were so honest and didn’t let each other hide or misconstrue anything – it was refreshing.
Chloe was used to seeing her life and her illness as normal, but she wasn’t used to other people acting the same way.
Both characters developed via motivation from their partner AND through inner motivations to be their best self, and I thought that was beautiful. The partner would add to the conversation about the other’s inner turmoil, but they never changed each other. It was all inner motivation that the other would support/bolster. This made the climax/angsty moment rather anticlimactic and unnecessary, though. They had such a solid relationship, the final blowup felt contrived. These two don’t need drama.
God. I can’t wait to move onto the next installment, Take a Hint, Dani Brown! I hope it features more of Gigi (grandma). This one was so fabulous, funny, smart, witty, emotional, pure, refreshing, sarcastic and sassy… does it honestly get better than this? I can see myself rereading this one often <3
Other great dislike-to-friends-to-lovers romances you may enjoy…
Have you read this one? Do you enjoy dislike-to-friends-to-lovers stories? Let me know in the comments down below, I’d love to hear from you!
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