BOTM pick for November 2019!
I've been extremely generous with my 5 star ratings recently, but Talia Hibbert is an author that truly earns every freaking star she receives. She's a national treasure and we do not deserve her, folks. If you enjoy meaningful romances that are as diverse as they are steamy, please do yourself a favor and pick this one up. Dani's story is next in the trilogy, and you bet I'm waiting on pins and needles for it to be released. *FYI, this book does contain graphic sexual content and may not be suitable for all audiences.
Me, when I shed my dark, thriller reading persona, and pick up a feel good, steamy romance:
*Many thanks to the publisher for providing my review copy. 9780062941206 perhaps my subscribers DO know me 9780062941206 Charming romance novel involving a woman with chronic pain and an attitude to mask it and her building’s super, a giant man with long flowing red hair and a tender, wounded heart. Well written, great banter, sexy vibes. Refreshing to see a romance novel about people with real problems while also including all the things we love about romance novels. Took way too long to get to the sex! Just way too long. 9780062941206 Are! You! Kidding! Me!
This was so cute I actually started tearing up–multiple times. I cannot get over how healthy the pairing was! Each character developed through motivation from their partner AND themselves to be their best self. Pass me the tissue, I can’t handle such beauty.
I will say that I wasn’t wild about the climax (or relative lack thereof). But, then again, I felt this book and Chloe & Red’s relationship was too solid for unnecessary ~drama~.
This will 100% be a re-read in the future. I need more Redford Morgan in my life.
Can’t wait to continue the series! 9780062941206 This is the book equivalent of a Double Stuf Oreo. (This is not a typo - for reasons unknowable, the frosting-like contents of an Oreo are branded as “stuf.” With one F. Which somehow makes the already-gross idea of ingesting something as vaguely and euphemistically named as “stuff” even grosser.)
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Anyway, it takes an already good thing (an Oreo, or a romance novel) and takes the thing that makes it good (the aforementioned Stuf, or the romance novel stuff I will discuss later), and gives you more of it.
I can’t believe it exists, I can’t believe we’re lucky enough to exist in a world in which it exists, and yet I am delighted that these things are true.
There is a lot of good stuff between these pages, just as there is a lot of good Stuf between Double Stuf Oreo cookies.
I mean, the REPRESENTATION here. The EFFORTLESSNESS of that representation.
The depiction of chronic pain, which is not happily ever after’d away, nor is it ignored when it’s not convenient to the plot!
Our protagonist, who is fat and black and both of these things are part of the fact that she is beautiful!
Our hero, who is recovering from an abusive relationship and not magically free of side effects from it!
This is just so representative of so many marginalized identities and so effortlessly good at it. It makes you wonder why more books can’t be like this.
That being said...
It took me a REALLY long time to get into this story. By “a really long time,” I mean at legitimately the 75% mark. I didn’t feel invested until there were less than a hundred pages to go, but I eventually felt semi-invested and that’s what counts!!
Yes, maybe I didn’t start rooting for this couple to get together until Drama Drove Them Apart but still. Who’s to say if that isn’t just because of what’s wrong with me as a person? The best parts of every romance are the Suffering Will They Won’t They parts. Give me season 2 Jim and Pam flirtation over season 4 Jim and Pam relationship any day.
Another good thing about this romance and a bad thing about me when it comes to romance: I am incredibly awkward and tend to cringe at any smut scene, but this was well done so thank you to the author for rescuing me from myself on this one.
I just want every book to have the cream-to-cookie ratio that this book had. (Did I lose the metaphor?)
Bottom line: This book is so miraculous it made me talk too much about Oreos and in doing so apparently lose my mind!!!
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pre-review
i am satisfied.
review to come / 4 stars I DON'T KNOW
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tbr review
not asking for much from this book, just that it be the cutest thing in existence and make me happy and fill the void within me.
you know. casual reading stuff 9780062941206
So CUTE so PURE 9780062941206 This book was so cute and sweet (and steamy)! I enjoyed the banter, smut, and the love interest being so unabashedly in love with the protagonist. I also enjoyed seeing how tender and attentive he was to her chronic condition. My main complaint is that the conflict in the last 1/3 of the book seemed to have come out of nowhere; from there, it started feeling pretty rushed and contrived. I appreciate that the characters ended up communicating and owning up to their issues, but the conflict in the last act was still unnecessary and heavy-handed. I’m glad that it was at least resolved quickly though so things didn’t need to be dragged out. 9780062941206 It feels right to be here again, two years after I posted my original review, to scream about the masterpiece that is Get A Life, Chloe Brown once more. Last time, I opened with statements like, “romance isn’t really my jam” and “I’m always skeptical to dip my toes into steamy waters (hah)
Obviously none of that really applies anymore; I now read smut like it’s a 9 to 5. That said, I'll never not give it up for Chloe because she started it all.
Let’s re-recap why I love this story so fucking much:
The titular woman herself. I’ve read a good handful of Talia Hibbert’s books now, but none of their other MCs speak to me the way this particular Brown sister does. We are so alike it’s stupid. I, too, have made countless ‘get a life’ lists in my time and am enamored by glittery stationery. I love keeping people at a distance and shutting down the moment things get vulnerable. It gives me hope. If this self-proclaimed ‘socially inept control freak’ can find her happy ending, maybe I can too.
Red. What a sweet slice of man. What a king. I remember when I first read about him, I was SHOCKED that a love interest could be (and I quote!) generous, caring, nice, and not a douche. Aside from the fact that all those words mean the same thing (someone clearly needed to pry the thesaurus from my overenthusiastic hands), it’s safe to say that Red raised the bar on how I envision a worthwhile romantic hero. As someone who was brought up on the likes of Christian Grey and Travis Maddox, Redford Morgan was a game changer. Suits and six-packs may be hot but emotional intelligence is WAY hotter, and all that.
The characters may bring the story to life, but this book’s excellence comes from more than the frivolous fun of posh banter and bedroom escapades. There’s balance. Once again, I’d blame my early 2010’s introduction to the genre for this, but seeing a fictional couple hit realistic hurdles and actually work through them was a phenomenon I’d yet to encounter when I first read Get A Life. But even if that wasn’t the case, even if this was utterly ridiculous in all aspects, I’d rather go down the avenue of cavity-inducing dialogue and a cat-rescue/meet-cute than find out that the man we’re supposed to be rooting for stole the main character’s bloody bedsheets to prove to his friends that he’d managed to fuck her.
In short: it’s fluff, it’s fun. These two nerds bring me an almost unparalleled amount of comfort and were the first to do so. Shoutout to T Hibbs for opening my eyes to the wonderful world of written romcoms & upping my standards for what love can be. 9780062941206 Upgraded review: this book is a real gem and I wish it got nomination from best romance category. Because in my opinion this is one of the surprising, emotional, humorous, smart, remarkable books of the year!!!
Wow 4.25, I wasn’t expecting to like this book so much, I was so ready to have an easy peasy cheesy rom-com reading but I got: emotions are everywhere, heart wrecking second chances of traumatized, struggling two beautiful soul’s story and I adored, devoured, savored and finally found my juicy romance STARS! Amen to that!
I’m so happy because in the meantime, I was reading another romance story which I detested (its review is coming up and unfortunately it’s one of the most popular and highly promoted books of the year) and I was about to give up reading something decent and lovable book, something makes you feel alive, something makes your heart ache, refresh your soul, put a smile on your face which couldn’t be wiped so easily. I’m happy to announce: this book gave me more than I expected and I finally found LOVABLE AND ADORABLE AMAZING CHARACTERS.
Chloe, witty, sophisticated, who has great taste when it comes to buttoned cardigans and colorful vintage dresses, carries the pain as indispensable piece of your life because she’s suffering from fibromyalgia, accompanied by fatigue and altered sleep, memory, mood.
One day she had a nearly dead experience. A drunk driver got into a store, instead of crashing her which made her think she had one life to live so she needed to escape from the cocoon that her protective and lovely family wrapped around her and prepare a list to teach her how to take more risks and bring more fun into her dull, foreseeable life.
As soon as she moved to an apartment she meet with super-duper hottie intendent Red-ford who was always seeing red on their encounters. Then we start witnessing their slow burn romantic relationship. Chloe has to deal with her insecurities because of her illness. Her own fiancée and close friends ghosted her after they found out her chronic disease.
And Red who was once upon a time a selected, famous painter, still trying to bury the ghost of ex girlfriends’ ghost, suffering from wrong decisions of his life. Now he needs a take a step to embrace his new opportunities by opening his heart to new and meaningful love.
Two of them literally collided and made wrong impressions about their real intentions. They started to think the worst of each other. But a beautiful cat made her job as a secret cupid to bring them together and helped them connect. So they took a first step from enemies to become friends.
Chloe needs help of Red to fulfill her list and Red needs an efficient website for his comeback operation for his new drawings. It started with friends with benefits agreement (not including sex, Chloe excluded that option from her list) but then…. No more spoiler… Grab the book and keep your sassy smile. A small spoiler… The chemistry between the couple is hot as hell.
I was truly adamant to give five stars to this book. But… there is an angsty moment… which is not too necessary… a little pissed me off… I know every new relationship with the characters who have heavy baggage from their pasts can stumble with struggles but I wish the author visualized far better obstacles between those characters.
I love edgy, heart breaking moments about the characters’ breakup to realize how they cannot live without each other. But this hearsay kind of misunderstanding caused a great cliffhanger of their relationship didn’t work with me!
But I still loved this romantic story! I adored the couple! And I’m curious about those incredible sisters’ entertaining stories! I’m all in for the sequels!
Special thanks to Avon and Netgalley to share this wonderful read with me in exchange my honest review!
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twitter 9780062941206 I used to think that 23-years-old people were adults with families and a house of their own… and here I am languishing away and reading romance to fill the void inside my heart lol 9780062941206
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… Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters, #1)