Get a Life, Chloe Brown

Chloe’s Get a Life list is an important motif throughout the work, and drives the plot forward. Through the creation and revision of her Get a Life list, Chloe finds true happiness and embraces a life that she did not think herself brave enough to pursue.

Chloe is organized and a list-maker by nature, but it is through adjusting or edits to the list that she finds the most happiness. As Chloe adjusts and edits to her list, she becomes more open and adaptable in her life as well. Chloe shows this in editing her list after the disappointment she feels at the bar with Red. She realizes that her drunken nights out with friends were only fun because of the company, and with this realization she decides to view it as an opportunity rather than a failure: “Maybe the list should be more than a box-ticking exercise. Maybe it should mean more. Maybe changing it wasn’t the end of the world” (273). She does just this, and in doing so, opens herself up to possibilities she thought were closed off to her, such as befriending Annie. She ultimately makes the biggest edit to her list: the addition of “Keep Red” (274), which illustrates that the list has shifted away from being a box-ticking exercise to an actual crystallization of what Chloe wants in life.