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May book club: Get a Life, Chloe Brown (S4E3)
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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".
Our May book club discussion is about Get a Life, Chloe Brown, a romance novel that features characters experiencing chronic pain and trauma. We talk about impacts and healing from abusive relationships; the mental toll of chronic pain and ableism; and accurate representations of being triggered.
- Book club info, detailed show notes, and other links: linktree.com/novel_feelings
- Get a 10% discount through Amplify Bookstore with the code NOVELFEELINGS10: http://amplifybookstore.com/products/novel-feelings-book-club
Additional content notes for this episode: This book is sexually explicit. We don't discuss details of sex scenes in the episode, but maybe listen to the podcast episode (or the audiobook) with headphones on!
Our podcast was recorded on Wurundjeri Land, which is home to both of us in Naarm/Melbourne. Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land.
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Transcript
Introduction to Novel Feelings Podcast
00:00:04
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Novel Feelings, where two psychologists take a deep dive into your favourite novels. I'm Priscilla. And I'm Elise. Today we're bringing you a book club review of Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert.
00:00:17
Speaker
And as a reminder, this is the third episode of our season four book club.
00:00:28
Speaker
and our March episode about hospital by Zanya Rushdie.
Book Club and Partner Acknowledgments
00:00:33
Speaker
And you can find further discussion about both books in our Facebook group, including discussion prompts. And as always, thank you to our book club partners, Amplify Bookstore.
00:00:43
Speaker
Amplify, if you haven't heard of them, is a bookstore dedicated to books by authors who are Black, Indigenous and or people of colour with the aim to diversify your bookshelf. You can purchase all of our book club picks in a convenient bundle or purchase them individually.
00:00:57
Speaker
They're offering 10% off to our listeners with the code NOVELFEELINGS10. Check out our share notes for all links and disclaimers and keep up to date on our social media at novel underscore feelings everywhere.
00:01:08
Speaker
And before we dive into our review, Priscilla, how would you rate your week on a five point scale?
Hosts' Personal Updates
00:01:15
Speaker
Well, I would say it's three out of five work days because that's exactly what happened this week. A very short work week, which is both good and bad because it's nice to have two long weekends in a row, but also it feels like you try and cram all your usual work into three days.
00:01:35
Speaker
So yeah, we are recording this just after the Easter slash Anzac Day break. So a lot of people have had a lot of time off, which has been good, but yeah, tricky when you still have a full-time workload that you're trying to do in a short week.
00:01:51
Speaker
Absolutely. But that's all right. i can't, I'm not going to complain about the long weekends. just really hate having time off. It's terrible. I know. What about you, Elise? How would you rate your week on a five-point scale?
00:02:05
Speaker
Well, I give it like a solid 4.5 out of five purely because I've been off work. but yeah I did that thing where I took the days off in between Easter and Anzac Day to give myself a nine-day break. And this is also a few weeks after coming back from our honeymoon overseas. So it's, you know, I've had a lot of time off in the last...
00:02:27
Speaker
month or so, which has been really nice. i' It's been very nice to actually just reset and have my nervous system calmed down a little bit. Yeah. Hopefully going back to work will not be stressful and it will be a nice, easy entry back. Hopefully. Anyway, we should talk a bit about this book.
About the Author and the Book
00:02:45
Speaker
So I'll start with a little bit about the author. So Talia Hibbert is a New York Times USA Today and internationally bestselling author whose books are available in 15 languages.
00:02:57
Speaker
Best known for her Brown Sisters series, Talia w writes spicy, inclusive romance novels starring complicated characters who make readers feel seen. And just a little bit about the book we're talking about today.
00:03:08
Speaker
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, including do something bad.
00:03:23
Speaker
But it's not easy being bad. 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 he's also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day.
00:03:41
Speaker
But when Chloe enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. All right, so why did we choose this book?
00:03:52
Speaker
ah Well, this is a romance novel and I think we we're running on a hit rate of about one romance novel per season. Yes. And this one in particular features quite a diverse cast of characters, including the titular character, Chloe, who's a young black woman with fibromyalgia.
00:04:10
Speaker
and the male main character, Red, who's recovering from an abusive relationship. So between those two characters, there's quite a lot of backstory and lore that brings a really interesting lens to the romance genre.
00:04:23
Speaker
And, you know, Talia Hibbert has obviously spoken about writing inclusive and diverse books quite intentionally. um And she's also spoken about her own experience of fibromyalgia, which influences the depiction of Chloe in this book too.
00:04:39
Speaker
And we've both read this book before, thought it would be a fun one to discuss. So I know you've read the other books in the series too. Yes, so I am two out of three out of um in terms of the series. yeah So I've read this one. I have also read i Act Your Age, Eve Bran, which is the third installment in the series.
00:04:59
Speaker
And I adored that one too. um That book features an autistic male main character, And I'm going to be quite vague to steer clear from spoilers, but it features good conversations around autism and how they present, ooh, merch appearance.
00:05:17
Speaker
Oh, yes. I'm using our special Novel Feelings mugs, which are so exclusive that we're the only ones that have some. of Yeah. we We did not do a big batch of print orders, but it it was nice to have our own merchandise.
00:05:33
Speaker
um Apologies that are for those who are listening in an audio only format, but if you want to see them, head to our Instagram to check out our Novel Feelings mugs. I was just a little excited and they're pretty cute. So happy to have a new mug. Yes, Eve Brown, excellent representations of different presentations of autism, I would say.
00:05:52
Speaker
I also started reading Take a Hint, Danny Brown during my honeymoon. I started by the pool and quickly realized it was way too horny to read in public. At least like for me, like sitting there with like all these families with young children around me.
00:06:08
Speaker
ah ah Maybe not. Not on the plane either. The perils of reading romance novels in public, just in general. Yeah, which was a shame because I like, this is a perfect holiday book. i just I just feel so self-conscious reading it in public.
00:06:24
Speaker
All right. Well, maybe you'll have to pick that one up again, but behind closed doors. Yes, absolutely. Happy to loan you all the books because I have all three now. yeah Good to know, thank you.
Themes and Advisories
00:06:35
Speaker
All right, so in terms of topics that we're discussing today, um so we've already mentioned a couple of these, but we'll be covering the impacts of living with chronic illness and pain, including impacts on mental health and the experience of ableism from others, ah the impacts of and healing from relationship abuse, including how this affects new relationships.
00:06:56
Speaker
And we'll also touch on class differences, healing and the role of therapy. And I guess a minor warning that, as flagged earlier, this is a romance novel. The book itself is sexually explicit, though I don't imagine we're going to go into a bunch of details. um But, you maybe listen with listen with headphones if you're around small children.
00:07:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:19
Speaker
I have to say, I forgot how horny it was before I started rereading it, which is like the Sunday of this week. We're recording on a Saturday. And i had I had told my mother-in-law, who follows us quite closely, thank you, Anne, for your whole your support.
00:07:38
Speaker
um But I told her that this was our next read and she downloaded it as an audiobook. So this is my public apology to Anne. if you're surprised by the amount of sex scenes in this one, I'm so sorry.
00:07:51
Speaker
And if you're listening, thank you once again for your support of the show. Feel free to fast forward if you don't want listen to that. I mean, i hope you enjoy it but I also, yeah, it's a it's like recommending this book to my own mom.
00:08:07
Speaker
I would never, so. Exactly. Anyway. Anyway. Apologies, Anne. Yeah. We'll keep it PG today. Yes, absolutely.
Chloe Brown's Journey and Challenges
00:08:17
Speaker
um All right, let's start our non-spoiler discussions and reviews.
00:08:23
Speaker
All right, so the first theme that we are going to touch on is the experience of chronic pain and fibromyalgia. So here we should introduce our main character, Chloe.
00:08:33
Speaker
um So Chloe's in her early 30s. She's a web developer and one of three sisters, the Brown sisters, who all have their own ah novel in this series. And Get a Life Chloe Brown starts after a near-death experience, which prompts Chloe to move out of home and try to quote unquote, get a life. so what is fibromyalgia um for those who might not be aware?
00:08:59
Speaker
Yeah, well, to be honest, I don't think I ever looked into it until until after I read this book. Like, I was aware that it existed, but I didn't know what it was in details. So fibromyalgia is a chronic, so an ongoing condition involving pain in many parts of your body, which can come and go.
00:09:20
Speaker
Other symptoms include tiredness, numbness, muscle stiffness, trouble sleeping, and problems with concentration. And I Don't think the cause of fibromyalgia is really understood, is it?
00:09:32
Speaker
No, no. So I know that flare-ups, so, you know, an increase in in symptoms and their impacts can be caused by things like stress, illness, poor sleep, overexertion.
00:09:44
Speaker
But I don't think it's really well understood what causes people to experience fibromyalgia in the first place. So Chloe developed this after, i believe, an experience of pneumonia. which is one way that this can develop. but We don't really know why someone might develop it.
00:09:59
Speaker
um And it can also be really difficult to diagnose. So there may not be physical markers like there are for physical injuries. um And unfortunately, there's no cure for fibromyalgia, but there are treatments and strategies to manage or prevent flare-ups and those really sort of difficult ongoing impacts that can happen.
00:10:19
Speaker
So in terms of Chloe's experience. um So she fits a lot of these kind of classic symptoms of fibromyalgia, including ongoing fatigue, pain, migraine, fevers, and flare-ups, of course. So we witness Chloe experience a few flare-ups during the book.
00:10:36
Speaker
She does what she can to prevent them, but these have to be managed through ah a lot of rest and also medication, which can cause side effects in itself. And flare-ups can cause what she calls a lack of spoons.
00:10:49
Speaker
So if you haven't heard of spoon theory, I'm probably going to do a really bad job of explaining this now. But my understanding is it's the idea that everybody only has a certain number of spoons that they can give throughout a day. So it's kind of like your capacity to go about your day, to function, to go to work, to catch up with friends, to do different things that people might do during a day.
00:11:13
Speaker
But when someone's experiencing a chronic illness um or a flare-up, they don't have as many spoons to give. So they have a limited capacity within that day. So someone might have 12 normally and during a flare-up might only have three. So just can't do as much as they might normally do. Yeah, absolutely. And Chloe's experience, which I think is shared by a lot of people who experience chronic pain or fibromyalgia specifically, is that it is an invisible affliction. So it's, as we talked about before, but it can be quite hard to diagnose. And in Chloe's experience, it took a couple of years, I think, quite a long time and a lot of advocacy from her family.
00:11:52
Speaker
and it also helps, I think, that her family is quite wealthy and can afford ongoing healthcare. Um, but she speaks about being dis dismissed by healthcare professional. Like at one point a doctor asked to speak to her father, despite her being an adult and sort of suggested that it was all in her head that she should get checked for like a mental illness.
00:12:15
Speaker
ah That's bad, obviously. And an experience that is shared by a lot of ah people with invisible illnesses and in particular women and people of colour who are dismissed a lot of the times. you know the Think of the classic experience, a woman coming in with pain and then being told, oh no, it's just anxiety or stress. you know Go do some meditation and you'll be fine.
00:12:40
Speaker
it's It's incredibly infuriating for people that are just trying to understand what on earth is happening for them. Yeah, absolutely. And in Chloe's case, that dismissal also comes from friends and perhaps worse of all, her fiance.
00:12:55
Speaker
ae Her fiance just didn't believe that she was in pain and just said that she was like malingering or not. mut Maybe didn't use that word exactly, but that was the vibe that Chloe got.
00:13:07
Speaker
And that led to that relationship and a lot of friendships just kind of fading out as well. Yeah. And, you know, Part of that is also due to Chloe's lifestyle limitations that came about as a result of this. So a big trigger of flare ups is over exertion. So Chloe would begin avoiding things that made her fibromyalgia worse. So quitting netball, quitting her postgraduate degree, stopping going out with friends.
00:13:38
Speaker
um And as a result, you know, those friendships kind of faded away. um but also the loss of independence led to a lot of frustration and anxiety about the future. So prior to the novel, Chloe was living at home, living with family, and is prompted to try to regain some independence and try to do some things that have been previously limited or that she's been avoiding as a result of her chronic illness.
00:14:04
Speaker
Yeah, so she moves out of her family home which apparently is massive.
Relationship Dynamics and Challenges
00:14:08
Speaker
It's a mansion of some sort. Yeah, I don't think they were all squatting in a tiny apartment. It would have been quite a comfortable setup, I think.
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah, so she leaves this comfortable mansion and moves into a standard apartment, I would say. um And in this apartment, there's a superintendent.
00:14:27
Speaker
So this is Redford Morgan, or better known as Red, which is fitting because apparently he's a red hair, third man. Yeah. um Yeah, something a little bit cruel about naming a redheaded child.
00:14:41
Speaker
red Redford. Yeah. You know, lean into it, I guess. yeah So Red is currently a superintendent, formerly an artist. By appearance, a bad boy. So, you know, rides a motorbike, wears leather, has tattoos.
00:15:01
Speaker
But he's actually very sweet and caring. Like I think our introduction is that he was trying to unclog an elderly lady's toilet because her grandson was flushing the veggie lasagna.
00:15:16
Speaker
Like a vegetable casserole or something. And then she was insisting that he stay for dinner and he couldn't say no. Like it's a very sweet introduction to Red. Chloe and Red start off as almost like light enemies.
00:15:29
Speaker
So she can be quite standoffish and He perceives her to be a bit of a snob and thinks that, you know, she he thinks that she thinks that he's beneath her and doesn't give you give him the time of day.
00:15:42
Speaker
Chloe's a bit dismissive of him. So they they sort of are in each other's orbit as as, you know, someone in the apartment block versus superintendent that don't necessarily get along at the start of the novel um until there is an incident with a cat in a tree. So Chloe has che finds herself rescuing a cat in a tree and then Red needs to, I guess, rescue her from the tree as well as she struggles to get down herself. And this is sort of the starting point for them to form a deeper friendship and eventually a relationship in the novel.
00:16:16
Speaker
Yeah, that should be noted. Like we mentioned spy session in the summary. Oh, yes. This is because like Chloe's window and Red's window faces each other, face each other.
00:16:29
Speaker
Chloe has accidentally, well, it started off accidentally. She accidentally caught sight of him painting with his shirt off in the middle of the night and then started watching.
00:16:42
Speaker
Like, The reason that he gave, she gave is that because he looks like he's coming alive when he's painting and he's quite attractive as well. So she's like sort of spying on him, like watching him paint at night and he caught him. He caught her at one point.
00:17:01
Speaker
It's only so long you can get away with that. I mean. Yeah. yeah It's like your light is on, their light is on like windows. It's not the sneakiest thing in the world.
00:17:12
Speaker
No. no but after the cat incident chloe unlists him to help her with the get a life list oh yeah and red agrees well in exchange for her building him a website to help him sort of get back into the art world and promote his art and sell his art again um but we should probably talk about red's backstory as one of the other uh the next i suppose key theme in this book is his experience of
00:17:43
Speaker
relationship abuse. So a notable part of his backstory is relationship with his ex-girlfriend, a woman named Pippa. ah So we learn through flashbacks throughout the novel and you know various references that Pippa was quite a wealthy and well-connected woman who Red was involved with, who essentially gave him an introduction to the art world is it like a bit of an in, like an open door.
00:18:08
Speaker
And I suppose he was a bit reliant on her in that sense for forming those connections and starting to have a little bit of success as an artist. But we learned that Pippa was quite verbally abusive towards him, was really like chipping away at his self-esteem and his self-worth, sometimes physically abusive as well. We don't get a lot of detail about that though, but at one point he references her stabbing him with a fork as one the more extreme incidents.
00:18:40
Speaker
Horrible, obviously. um And also was trying to isolate him, so preventing him from seeing his family too. yeah And they kind of got stuck in this dynamic where people was also minimising their fights, kind of turning things back on him, apologising in a very inauthentic way and kind of making Red think or think it's his fault or apologise for her actions or like courting her to react in a certain way.
00:19:05
Speaker
um ah very kind of yeah classic abuse cycle that can happen. And it's that interesting dynamic because it's the woman who's the perpetrator and in terms of the physical abuse, even Red was saying, you know,
00:19:17
Speaker
it didn't actually, because she was so small compared to him, when she hit him, it didn't actually cause physical damage, I suppose, initially. But that's still not all right. No, no, of course not. And yeah, I haven't really read a lot of depictions of hetero abuse where the perpetrator is a woman, but...
00:19:41
Speaker
You know, I think one of the things that can come from that is we don't have as much of a narrative about what this looks like and what the impacts can be. um yeah but you know, as I mentioned before, it really chips away at Red's self-esteem um and leads him to sort of develop these core beliefs, these feelings like he's worthless or, you know, or that he's nothing, um leading to him to feel like an imposter in the art world, ah very sensitive to perceived rejection or manipulation, which we'll touch on more later.
00:20:11
Speaker
But one of the bigger impacts, like lifestyle impacts of this is after their breakup, um he withdraws from the art world and basically disappears. um And this is something that he was really passionate about and he escapepe but he he panics and he escapes and wipes his online presence and doesn't, yeah after a bit of time has passed, he doesn't really know how to get back into that world and that's why he's working um this handyman superintendent job.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And something that he's very conscious of, and I don't know if he would have been conscious of this anyway in the first place, but he's very conscious of class differences, especially in the context of his relationship with Chloe.
00:20:54
Speaker
ah Chloe is from a much wealthier background than Red. Red, I think, is quite middle class. And Chloe, as we said, comes from a family with a mansion. Wow.
00:21:06
Speaker
Money has not never been a problem, i get the impression, for the Brown family. Yeah. And Red has had to contend with class differences in his relationship with Pipa, but also just the broader art world, which unsurprisingly is ah quite a snobbish ah place, I suppose.
00:21:25
Speaker
yeah A very pretentious place, at least the scene that they're involved in. Yes, the scene that Red was trying to break into. oh o Because, you know, I don't think red sort of fits the typical stereotypical view of an artist as well. You know, this like tall, gangly guy, long flowing red hair, tattoos, leather. Like he comes across that first impression of more like a ah biker who stumbled into the gallery by mistake rather than um a talented or established artist. There's a lot of judgments that people will put on him because of his physical appearance, which we see in the book as Absolutely.
00:22:01
Speaker
Absolutely. And between Chloe and Red, this power imbalance and exists in this one way, but also intersects with other factors. For example, you know, after Red admits that she he thought Chloe was snobbish because of money, um Chloe talks to him about being a Black woman and being chronically ill and says, some of us have so many marginalizations we might drown if we let all the little hurts flood in.
00:22:34
Speaker
So there are those like me who filter. I think you've noticed I filter a lot. It's not some inbuilt shield made of money. It's just something I'm forced to do, which I think is quite an insight full insightful little quote there.
00:22:47
Speaker
Yeah. So we can understand why someone like Chloe would have these barriers up, right? So she's not going to be you the most necessarily come across as the most friendly person, the most open person in the world.
00:22:59
Speaker
She's quite scared of showing vulnerabilities to other people, ah least, people you know, slow to trust others as well. um And that's not necessarily because she's a snob or someone who's wealthy. It's because of her other lifestyle factors. So it's very, but there's a lot of judgments that people are putting on both of these main characters, actually. sort of untangle them as the book goes through.
00:23:24
Speaker
Yes. You know what just came to my mind? this Is this just another version of pride and prejudice? It kind of is, isn't it? Yeah. but Not quite. Except Red is Lizzie.
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yes, that's right. If we're going purely based on ah wealth and standoff issues, Chloe is Mr. Darcy. Red is Lizzie. Yeah. I'm not saying it's exactly the same plot line, but that's the themes, isn't it? Like there's pride and there's prejudice.
00:23:53
Speaker
Now I'm imagining just like um the Keira Knightley, Elizabeth Bennet with Red's face and leather the jacket. I don't know. That would be fun.
00:24:04
Speaker
Yeah. So I think that covers most of our non-spoiler themes. um You know, in terms of in terms of the plot for this book, I think we've we've kind of covered the main points and, you it is a romance so you can kind of see where this is going. So I won't, don't think it's a spoiler to say these two end up together and that is the the journey that they're on.
00:24:26
Speaker
and But before we dive into sort of some of the complications of their relationship in a bit more detail, I think we should pause here before we get too spoilery and maybe talk about our overall reviews of the book.
Review Rubric and Ratings
00:24:37
Speaker
And this is where we talk about our new review rubric as well. Yeah, if you missed our last episode, we had a bit of a discussion about how we are disagreeing on what ratings mean to both of us.
00:24:52
Speaker
And although it's perfectly okay to have your own rating system, when you're kind of working on the same book review brands, you probably need to be a little bit more aligned in terms of what a three-star a four-star, et cetera, means to you. So we have come up with a little bit of a rubric and we won't go into...
00:25:10
Speaker
all the details of what that means. Maybe we can just mention like the different areas that we are considering yeah when it comes to our reviews. Yes. So broadly we're taking four domains into account. So the quality of the storytelling, characters,
00:25:27
Speaker
And of course, representation of mental ill health, neurodiversity or other psychological themes and the impact that the book has on us. So considering things with that impact, you know, whether this is a memorable book, whether it gives us something to talk about, whether we'd recommend it to others, but also our emotional i reaction to the book. So sometimes we're just going to go by vibes and that's okay. Yeah. But hopefully this made me feel things made me feel things.
00:25:58
Speaker
But if we count for that alongside some of the other things, like the quality of the writing and character development and, you are there stereotypes in this or not? So hopefully our new rubric will allow us to get on the same page a little bit more when it comes to ratings.
00:26:13
Speaker
So. Priscilla, what did you give this book? I sort of tossed it up between four and five, but in the end I went with five stars, which is what I gave the book the first time I read it. It's just going by impact. The book gave me so much joy when I first read it. like It's just, there's a lot of like witty banter and really yearning, really good yearning, and that sense of like spark and chemistry, like when you fall in love with someone.
00:26:42
Speaker
it This is going to sound extremely cheesy, but it kind of reminds me of when I first fell in love with my husband. And it's just like that, like, you know, that first phase that first stage of like falling in love. And I think Talia Hebert captures that really well in this book. I love that you get a good sense of the other people in Chloe's and Red's lives.
00:27:02
Speaker
particularly with her sisters and grandmother, even though they don't spend a lot of time on the page, I feel like it adds to the richness of the characters that they have, like, lives outside of just each other.
00:27:18
Speaker
o and i really enjoyed how the third act conflict is handled as well. think we'll go into this a bit more later, but I just, I think this book portrays the impact of trauma really well, in addition to like the impact of chronic pain as well.
00:27:37
Speaker
i would say though, like the sexy scenes feel a lot more confronting this time around. And I'm like, is why? you know Is it because like I know we're going on mic to talk about our feelings about the book, and my on one hand, I am a grown married woman, and I can admit that I like some spice in my romance.
00:27:59
Speaker
And on the other, like, that still feels really embarrassing to say out loud. Maybe there's something internalised there still about what it means to be a romance reader in the 21st century. Like, it's becoming more normalised, but there's still a bit of a shame about talking about, you know, any kind of female gaze sexuality, I think.
00:28:21
Speaker
Shall we blame the patriarchy or my Catholic upbringing? it could be both. Maybe those two are intersecting. don't know. yeah but yes anyway do enjoy this book um very much what about you Elise I gave this a 4.5 out of five I think when I originally read it I gave it a four but looking at our rubric I've bumped it up to a 4.5 um it's an enjoyable fun romance with great representation and I have personal experience of chronic pain it's nowhere near to the extent that Chloe experiences it I don't have fibro but
00:29:00
Speaker
I do have um chronic back and shoulder pain, which is from an old injury, really boring. I won't go into it. um And it only affects me in quite a mild way. But, you know I do have flare-ups sometimes and they can be nasty. And I've dealt with the main things I relate to are people not understanding, sort of not necessarily believing me, but just like the amount of investigations you go through and the frustration to find no physical source of the pain. had so many different things to try to make it go away.
00:29:31
Speaker
And the ah know like the uncertainty, the anxiety about it has been really hard. So I did really appreciate that representation. And i think it's just great to see in the romance genre, ah you know, people that are not usually represented. So in Chloe, we get the experience of someone who's chronically ill but also um a black woman too and you know we see the intersections of that explored in a really unique and valuable way. um And I thought this book was really well written in general um and similar to you I really appreciated the third act conflict as I've spoken about before this is normally a pet peeve of mine in romance, um usually some contrived breakup in the third act only for people to get together
00:30:14
Speaker
But in this case, I felt it was earned and it felt real. And I really appreciated that. um The only things I didn't really love about this is I just didn't have as much of an emotional connection to give it that five star.
00:30:27
Speaker
And I thought there were few missed opportunities to maybe talk a little bit more about things like Chloe forming new friendships and or maybe rekindling old ones but you know we're not it's not the genre we're in so it's understandable that was not a focus obviously I've still given this a 4.5 out of 5 I think it's great for what it is but yeah no that's completely fair enough shall we dive into our spoilers yes absolutely
00:30:55
Speaker
quite a short, I think, part two today.
Analysis of Relationship Conflict and Reconciliation
00:30:58
Speaker
But what we really wanted to talk about is safety and trust in relationships, i.e. the ways that the character's earlier relationships affect the development of the central romance in this story.
00:31:12
Speaker
So we wanted to do a bit of a deep dive into the conflict that happens in the last, it's not even the last third of the book, really. It's more like the last 40 to 50 pages.
00:31:23
Speaker
um So the third act breakup, the resolution. Yes. So let's walk through the scene.
00:31:34
Speaker
So Chloe and Red have had a big, like, we're in love. I don't know if love was mentioned, but it's just like there they're in this. They are having, i was going to say they're having good sex, but that is what happened. They are in the new relationship bubble, right? They've gone camping.
00:31:50
Speaker
They finally, you know, been intimate with each other. Yes. Put it PG. You know, some of that tension has been resolved. And that's, Yes, at least admitting to themselves that they've caught feelings.
00:32:02
Speaker
So then they're in Chloe's bed together Chloe's sisters unexpectedly drop in. They have a key. So it's a literal, like they just come come into the the apartment.
00:32:15
Speaker
And so Chloe is like telling Red to hide because he's not wearing any clothes and she doesn't want her sisters to really know about this. And he overhears them mention Chloe has added Red.
00:32:29
Speaker
on the get alive list. As a result, Red well wright immediately interprets this as you know Chloe wants him as like meaningless sex, just as part of like doing something bad thing. And he immediately feels used and manipulated, becomes very angry, he's panicking, um and he accuses Chloe of using him.
00:32:56
Speaker
and then leaves before giving Chloe a chance to explain. mean So after this happens and he's kind of stormed out, when I suppose the anger subsides and that immediate panic reduces and he's feeling a bit more calm, he real he sort of reflects back on that moment and what just happened and realises, you know, Chloe isn't Pippa.
00:33:23
Speaker
You know, Pippa did that. Pippa was the one who was manipulating him and Chloe's not the same person. She's, you know, so far has treated him much better than Pippa has.
00:33:34
Speaker
Yet at the time, you know, he doesn't give her a chance to explain when she says, I think she says something like, I put you on the list because you were important. and Just let me, let me get it. Let me actually explain this to you.
00:33:46
Speaker
So he, he bolts and says some hurtful things, talks about, you know, being um unable to trust her, but you know, it's only after that moment has passed that he has that revelation of, oh, that was actually an overreaction.
00:34:00
Speaker
This is not right. Like this, I need to make this better. But by that point, it's, you know, the damage has been done at least for now. um And Chloe is hurt in response. But we should probably talk about this because this was actually explicitly described in the books being triggered And that's what gets thrown around a lot, but not often accurately. Yes, but this is actually one of the few portrayals where it is really accurate. because like Being triggered is that moment where your trauma is colouring what's happening in the present and all of the feelings and the beliefs and the physical sensations from that past experience.
00:34:39
Speaker
traumatic event comes come back up and you're reacting to that rather than what's actually happening and that's exactly what's happened to Red like he mentions in the book that he felt like he was out of his body and like watching himself during that moment where he was getting angry and panicking and then as soon as he stepped outside it was like he came back and then he grounded back into his body And then he could think about how Chloe wasn't Pippa and what's happened. And oh my God, you know, this, I did something wrong.
00:35:15
Speaker
and Interestingly though, I think Chloe was also to a degree it getting triggered as well, because she said to him, like, if you leave, that's it. And then she sort of relived.
00:35:29
Speaker
There was a line where she said, you know, why am I so easy to leave? who And that's, rooted in how, ah you know, her fiance and her friends all kind of abandoned her after she became sick.
00:35:43
Speaker
And I think Chloe also has these, these core beliefs or these schemas about being easy to leave. um ah you know perhaps even deeper in that that might mean that she believes that she's unlovable or not worthy of being in a relationship um or that it's not worth pursuing a relationship because this happens and that's extremely hurtful and she doesn't want to go through that again she's lived this once already and it's no wonder why she might end up feeling that way.
00:36:10
Speaker
And, you know, Red, in that moment, like that would have been scary for her to witness as well. Someone like Red who has been, you know, very kind, very calm, very considerate towards her, they're starting to develop this sense of trust. And then all it took was, you know, overhearing a few throwaway lines from sister misrepresenting yeah something in Chloe's life for him to have this huge, huge reaction to it.
00:36:37
Speaker
um So I can understand on both parts why they had that emotional reaction and then unpacking the impact of that I thought was really interesting too. i think what's interesting here as well, like they're both actually quite um considered and compassionate towards each other. Like while Red was in that moment of being triggered, Chloe knew what was happening.
00:36:58
Speaker
Like she, it wasn't a miscommunication. Like it was really about their, you know individual core beliefs, core negative beliefs clashing. She was actually, you know she understood what was going on for him, but could not get him to calm down or, you know, enough to listen to her.
00:37:18
Speaker
And then he also like has had moments in the book where he understood her fears as well. But this like this this fight was like a clash of those individual struggles.
00:37:31
Speaker
i should probably mention as well, like at this point in the book, Red is seeing a therapist as well. Yes. But he's quite early in his healing journey. So it's taken a bit of time for him to get to the point where he feels able to talk to someone about what happened with Pippa and to sort of start...
00:37:48
Speaker
um accessing support and untangling all of that it's maybe beginning to make a little bit of an impact but he still has a way to go ah do appreciate that it's not like a once-off he sees a therapist one time and they talk once and then it's all cured it's it's very much acknowledged like this is going to take some time and that's okay but yeah there might be points where they hurt each other Chloe at one point goes to see a family member and says and and sort of explores why she's feeling so hurt and abandoned and she says we hurt each other and now I feel trapped in this endless hesitation because well what if we keep doing it what if we keep making messes I'm the kind of person who hurts too much and of course tying in her experience with chronic pain there but they kind of end up resolving this by I guess eventually realizing that it's worth fighting through and it's worth healing from
00:38:42
Speaker
so ah you know, they eventually accept each other's apologies and aim to keep working through these issues and these conflicts, um which I really loved. Like that's something I thought was so, so good because it's not, it's not something you can necessarily promise that you're never going to hurt each other again.
00:39:00
Speaker
Right. Especially when you've got two hurt people who are coming together, but if they are willing to work through it and work on themselves as well as work on their relationship, I think that's really promising.
00:39:12
Speaker
Absolutely.
Wisdom and Favorite Moments
00:39:13
Speaker
And I love that scene with Chloe and her grandmother, Gigi, where she went to Gigi after all this happened with Red and said, how do you know that it's safe?
00:39:25
Speaker
How do you know it's worth the risk? And Gigi was like, you're asking two different questions. Love is never safe, but the risk can be worth it. I'm like, oh, that is such a good answer.
00:39:37
Speaker
Thank you, Gigi. You're saying so wise. Yeah. I think for me, like, this is definitely one of the stronger um third act conflicts in a romance novel. And, yeah, for those reasons outlined above, I really appreciate that it's not a neat ending, but it did feel very real and very realistic, but also just be find kind of unique. Like, this is not something that...
00:40:02
Speaker
ah I don't think I've ever seen that particular type of conflict in a romance. And again, I'm not the biggest romance reader in the world. I'm sure there are similar novels out there. But yeah, it does make me want to read more of Talia Hibbert's work.
00:40:16
Speaker
Yes. As I said before, you are welcome to borrow Danny and Eve's books. I will. Let me get through my current TBR first. Shall we talk about some of our favorite moments?
00:40:28
Speaker
Yes. I really love like the falling in love scenes like those paragraphs where Red and Chloe are realizing within themselves that they have like actual feelings toward each other not just like physical attractions yeah I know there's quite a few of them it's quite lovely the way it's described like my favorite scene is that conflict where Red became triggered and how Chloe responded and so on because As you've mentioned, it's not that common that the word triggered is used accurately in popular culture.
00:41:03
Speaker
And i really appreciated this depiction. What about you, Elise? I would say the email banter scene. So there's some great ah back and forth emails where Chloe is setting up Red's website and it just kind of, the conversation goes off the rails and it's great.
00:41:19
Speaker
I also really enjoyed the B plot involving Smudge the rescue cat as a grey cat owner. I just thought that was very cute.
00:41:28
Speaker
So now we've finished our review. Here's what to expect on our website.
Next Book Club Read and Podcast Support
00:41:35
Speaker
We will have some detailed show notes on novelfeelings.com. We'll include a few links to mental health reading and resources relating to some of the themes we've covered today, like chronic pain and relationship abuse.
00:41:46
Speaker
And we'll also include our book club discussion questions, which we'll also post to our Facebook group if you want to join in the conversation. Speaking of our next book, in July, we will be reading I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Togboki.
00:42:00
Speaker
So a little bit about this book. So Bec Sahi is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her, what to call it, depression. She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgmental of others.
00:42:16
Speaker
Part memoir, part self-help book, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Chabokki is a book to keep close and to reach for in times of darkness. I don't think either of us have read this one yet, so this is going to be a new adventure for us too.
00:42:28
Speaker
That wraps us up for today. If you like us, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Find us online on Instagram, YouTube, and through Novel underscore Feelings, or search Novel Feelings Community on Facebook. If we've entertained you or taught you something, please consider buying us a coffee to show your thanks. All proceeds go towards making the show stronger and more sustainable. All of the links are in our show notes.
00:42:56
Speaker
Thank you for listening today. See you next time. Bye. Our podcast was recorded on Wurundjeri land, which is home to both of us in Naam, Melbourne. We also acknowledge the role of storytelling in First Nations communities.
00:43:10
Speaker
Always was. Always will be. Aboriginal land.