This was just such a good, happy reading experience, and the audio made it better.
I am once again about a month behind my reviews, because it took me so long to write my review for Docile, so this one will be short and sweet. I basically adored this book. I’ve never read Talia Hibbert before, but you can bet I’ll be checking out her entire backlist now. This book was swoony and romantic, smart and compassionate, and funny! It’s so rare to find a romance author who can deliver both swoons and giggles in equal measure.
Get a Life, Chloe Brown follows our titular protagonist, who is a chronically ill black woman living in London, who has decided to reevaluate her life after a (humorous) brush with death. Chloe’s family is very wealthy, and she has been isolating herself more as the years go by since her diagnosis. She makes a list of things she wants to do in order to get a life, and then sets about trying to do them. The first thing is to get her own place, which is where she meets Red, the current super of her apartment building, and they rub each other the wrong way immediately. Eventually, Red gets caught up in helping her complete her list, and the book takes its time letting us see them get to know one another, and one by one turn around their assumptions about each other.
What ends up happening is we just get to see two lovely people see the best in each other, and support each other. The book doesn’t make it seem like love is the answer to all problems, but instead takes the subtler approach that someone who loves you shouldn’t try to fix you, but support you in trying to fix yourself (if you even need fixing at all). We see them learn how to patch up their past hurts, and learn to trust each other, even though it’s hard. There is also a very cute cat in this, if that’s something you care about.
I highly recommend the audiobook version. I thought Adjoa Andoh gave a wonderful performance. She got the humor of it just right, and it was fun listening to her do British accents for eight hours.
[4.5 stars rounding up, because of the delightfulness]