Get a Life, Chloe Brown (2019) by Talia Hibbert is the first of the Brown Sisters trilogy, and a sheer delight! I will be putting the other two–Take a Hint, Dani Brown (2020) and Act Your Age, Eve Brown (2021)– on my TBR list in 2024.
Why was I so delighted? Hibbert checks all of my boxes–we have a fat character who is not trying to lose weight (and the storyline does not focus on her weight much at all); that same character, Chloe, is chronically ill and decides that she’s going to live her life anyway; the male protagonist, Red, is a ginger, and an artist, and a sexy, sensitive soul, mama’s boy, motorcycle rider. There are queer minor characters, and it’s a multicultural romance, set in England–it might be worth listening to the others on audio, just for the accents.,
Chloe is nearly hit by a car, and makes up a list to “Get a Life,” which includes moving into her own apartment, having a drunken night out, and going camping. She’s always been so good, and she got fibromyalgia anyway, so she wants to try to be bad. Red happens to be the super/handyman in her building, who runs into her at her worst moments. He is working class, and she is obviously posh. But she can’t stop spying on him painting across the courtyard, and he can’t stop thinking about her.
I loved their banter, their backstories, how they got in the way of themselves in being together, and then how they reconciled. It was a lovely, fat-positive, hetero romance. I highly recommend when you need a palate-cleanser–a sweet, well-written happily ever after.
Reading While Fat 