genre: contemporary romance
Chloe Brown's life is not headed in the direction she wants. There are things she cannot change, true, like her chronic illness and painful memories, but it's time to change the things she CAN change. So she makes a list, because Chloe Brown is stellar at making lists. Checking the items off is going to take facing her anxiety and some serious out-of-the-box behavior. When she meets Red, as much as he drives her crazy, this white boy with a history of his own makes Chloe dig even deeper into what it is her heart really wants.
I want to give this book more than 3 stars because I really appreciated Chloe as a marginalized character and I feel like she taught me so much about what living with a chronic disease could be like - the toll it can take on you both physically and emotionally. I liked thinking about two such different people finding love with each other, even if I had a hard time completely falling for their attraction. The banter here is good fun and I can tell the author is a solid writer. For me, though, Red's constant use of the "f" word and his explicit inner monologue (and sometimes dialogue) just pulled me out of the story. Yes, they are consenting adults and I didn't expect there to be no "scenes" but it almost felt forced and cheesy, which distracted me. I do recognize this is an issue with me as a reader and how I like my romance, and is not necessarily a problem with the book itself.
While it wasn't my cup of tea, living in Chloe Brown's shoes for a while was a good way for my brain to finish out 2020. She's tough and capable and just figuring out how to live her best life, and while I have read a lot of books about anti-racism this year and made a more serious effort to read about the Black experience, this story of a Black woman finding happiness was important for me. It makes me want to move even more out of nonfiction and explore more of the Black experience from a fictional and not-just-Black-pain outlook.
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