Enemies to Lovers: Get a life, Chloe Brown Book Review

Chloe and Redford both have a mutual agreement to hate each other, even though they actually don’t know each other at all. Everything they hate about each other is assumed or made up. Get A Life, Chloe Brown, by Talia Hibbert, is about two people projecting their own insecurities onto one another until they actually have a real and true conversation and start falling madly in love with each other.

Now, the enemies-to-lovers trope can be a tricky trope to tackle as a writer because how uncomfortable male entitlement can be in real life. Our favorite characters cannot recreate a dangerous situation of a man, as an enemy, later force his feelings onto the female love interest just because he has feelings for her. Modern women everywhere have agreed to raising the standards and demanding that our partner actually likes us before we get into a relationship with them. Which means the brooding guy in the corner can’t just walk up to us and ask us out anymore. We have to actually get to know each other, have a conversation, and mutually decide we want to continue seeing each other. If not, it’s not going to happen. And while this may seem obvious, any woman to your left or right will tell you that they have been pressured into “giving a guy a chance” just because he wanted to go out with her, not because she wanted to go out with him too. And all too often the pressure appease the man leads to more uncomfortable, and even dangerous situations down the line.

Considering how terrifying that situation is in real life, we don’t want to relive it while reading a book in the comfort of our own homes. Because of this, the enemies-to-lovers trope must make sure there is no pressure from the male character onto the female love interest, so as to not mirror the pressure women already feel in real life thanks to male entitlement.

If actually hates her, and wishes harm on her, or even enacts harm onto her, the trope falls apart regardless of whether or not he does soften up later in the story because the damage is already done. If he’s too hard on her and then forces himself into a romantic relationship with the female love interest, then it may read as a thinly veiled justification for an abusive relationship. That is not what we are looking for in a romance novel. We only read healthy romances with open lines of communication in this house, thank you very much.

Talia Hibert steers clear of this by making her characters unable to continue to hate each other after they’ve been properly aquatinted. Redford has his guard up because he has decided that Chloe hates him because she is a classist. She’s an ice queen with quick jabs and witty remarks for everything he says. She’s also especially cross with the people in her building and, as uptight as she may seem, has pulled the occasional prank on the other tenants. The kind of pranks that includes a thermos of hot tea in a resident’s mailbox.

Chloe on the other hand is sure that Redford hates her because of all the terrible things he’s seen her do. Terrible things that include pouring her morning thermos of tea into her nosey neighbor's mailbox because she keeps peaking into hers. It’s not her fault her neighbor was elderly and easily confused, but Chloe assumed the break-in was malicious, and a federal crime, so the prank was executed.

The novel makes a point of reiterating to the reader that assumption is the root of all misunderstandings. Chloe is not, in fact, classist, she’s perpetually irritated. It’s part of her personality at this point and the first line of defense in protecting Chloe’s feelings being hurt by new people. And Redford does not like everyone in the world except for Chloe, he just had a bad first impression of her because when they first met she was a bit stand-offish. When he didn’t get a clear answer for her cold demeanor, he filled in the blanks with his own insecurities.

About a fourth of the way into the novel, the two have a conversation that lasts longer than their usual squabble, and the two quickly become friends and one step closer to lovers. I love the way that their eventual relationship is, more or less, easy. The only thing standing in their way is themselves and they both take steps to fix their own insecurities for the sake of keeping this relationship going. They are always choosing to love each other and along the way they choose to be the best version of themselves, for their own sake and for their new partner too.

Love doesn’t always have to be an uphill battle with declaration of love after declaration of love. It can be showing up for each other day after day, encouraging each other to be their very bests, and being a shoulder to cry on when the going gets rough. I give Get a Life, Chloe Brown 5/5 stars and I look forward to more of Talia Hibbert’s work.

What did you think of Get a Life, Chloe Brown? Some people thought it was too slow but I don’t see it.

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