Get a Life, Chloe Brown

Red Morgan is the co-protagonist of Get a Life, Chloe Brown; he is an artist and the nemesis-turned-romantic interest of Chloe. Red transforms through the text by confronting his past relationship trauma and doing the challenging work to heal himself. Red grows through the text by engaging in therapy: “After two sessions in relatively quick succession, he wasn’t exactly enjoying therapy, but he was enjoying how much more he understood his own head” (280). Red deals with imposter syndrome and the fear that a romantic partner will mistreat or manipulate him. Therapy gives Red the tools to prevent his past relationship from derailing his present, but it takes him some practice and nearly causes the demise of his relationship with Chloe.

Red misunderstands Chloe’s intentions when he overhears her telling her sisters that she put him on her Get a Life list. Because of his past trauma with Pippa, Red’s immediate reaction is to assume that to be on Choe’s list means something negative or demeaning–that Chloe is trying to “[manipulate] him, just like Pippa had” (334). He lashes out at Chloe and pushes her away, which she has an outsized response to because of her own abandonment issues. Once he realizes that he was wrong: “Whatever he’d overheard, whatever he’d believed, he knew Chloe wasn’t using him. He knew” (335), it’s almost too late and Chloe tells him to leave.

Red wins Chloe back through a series of gestures and gifts that prove he will continue to work on himself in therapy to be healthy for himself and for their relationship. He writes to her in a letter: “I want you to trust me again. I want to make you smile until you forget how it feels to cry. I want you to know I’m not going anywhere” (353). Red and Chloe ultimately reunite even though neither one completely resolves their personal issues. Red apologizes for his actions: “Chloe, I’m sorry. I freaked out, I took my own shit out on you, and I just—I shouldn’t have. But you read the list, and you know I’m working on it” (361). Red’s ability to confront his faults enables Chloe to forgive him and put their relationship back on track.

Gigi is Chloe’s eccentric grandmother. Grand and theatrical, Gigi appears in the text at times when Chloe needs support. Gigi supports Chloe unconditionally and can tell when something is wrong with Chloe. Although Chloe often struggles to reveal how she is really feeling, even with her sisters, Chloe often reveals her true feelings to Gigi. An example of this is in Chapter 11 when Chloe explains how upset she was to find that Smudge had an owner and Gigi agrees that Annie must be “an unfit mother. I’m sure of it” (171). Aside from her unwavering support of Chloe, Gigi is an important character because she encourages Chloe to not give up on love.

After her and Red’s relationship-ending argument, Chloe trusts only Gigi with her feelings and questions about love. She asks Gigi how to know when love is safe and worth the risk and thinks to herself: “Please tell me it never is. Please tell me that I did the right thing [...] No. Please don’t” (349). She goes to Gigi with her relationship problem because she knows that Gigi will encourage her to take the risk. Even more importantly than encouraging Chloe to take a risk for love, Gigi reminds Chloe that “[she is] a woman who, in a life filled with pain, came here to ask about love” (351). This statement is revelatory for Chloe and causes her to realize that she is a woman who decided to change her life with a list, and who survives every day despite her physical challenges. Gigi enables Chloe to see herself for who she really is, which encourages her to take the risk necessary to find love and happiness with Red.