Only When It’s Us by Chloe Liese

Only When it's us by Chloe Liese

Narrated by Nelson Hobbs & CJ Bloom

I “discovered” Chloe Liese last year when I read book 4 of the Bergman Brothers series, With You Forever. Only When It’s Us is the first in the series. As I like both narrators I decided to start at the beginning. As it happens, the version I listened to is the 2021 “revised and expanded” edition. As I haven’t read or listened to the original I have no idea exactly what changed but I can make some educated guesses.

Willa Sutter and Ryder Bergman are in college together at UCLA and they share a business maths class. Willa is a D1 soccer player with ambition to play professionally after college – and she’s good enough to do it. Unfortunately business math is kicking her ass because of missed classes due to away games and a professor who is less than sympathetic about helping her out with lecture notes. He does however point her toward Ryder who “has all the notes”.

Ryder happens to be the professor’s brother-in-law (Aidan is married to Ryder’s sister Freya) but the reason Ryder has the notes is not narcissism – it’s because after a bout with bacterial meningitis, he’s functionally deaf and needs accommodations to successfully participate in class.

Ryder has had trouble adjusting to hearing aids and hasn’t spoken for the 2 years since his initial illness. He mostly communicates via text messaging, a little lip reading and a bit of ASL. Of course, when Willa asks Ryder for his notes he doesn’t hear her and she thinks he’s ignoring her so they don’t start off well.

After the misunderstanding is sorted out, Willa and Ryder are assigned together for a group project (Aidan is playing matchmaker). Their relationship is not enemies to lovers – Willa describes it as “frenemies” but I didn’t feel that was right either. They’re quickly friends but the way they express their friendship is to trade friendly insults and play pranks on one another. It’s actually very Australian. (You know you’re loved when the family is paying you out.) There’s a difference between fond “shit talk” and banter and mean insults and Ryder and Willa (apart from perhaps the very beginning) are firmly on the fond side. There’s really never any doubt they like and value each other.

Willa is the daughter of a single mother and has deep-seated father issues. She doesn’t think she can ever have a relationship and isn’t looking for one. Willa also has tremendous trouble having difficult conversations or confronting any kind of conflict (except on the soccer field) and tends to bail and avoid deep and meaningfuls.

Willa also has the rather extraordinary habit of speaking her thoughts out loud without realising it.

Ryder is more direct but he’s also still grieving the loss of his hearing and learning to navigate his world as it is now. He was also a soccer player – on a full scholarship – but after he lost his hearing he stopped playing. Over the course of the book, inspired by Willa (albeit largely unknowingly), Ryder tries with hearing aids again and this opens other possibilities for him. I liked the representation here and the way that hearing aids were described as being not as easy to adapt to as they might appear and the difficulties Ryder had navigating certain sounds and places.

Don’t let the illustrated cover fool you – while there is plenty of humour in the book – there’s some very sad stuff too. Willa’s mother is dying of cancer and (spoiler alert) she dies during the course of the book. Willa and her mother were very close and I needed tissues when it happened.

I thought it was a bit unfair of Willa’s mother not to talk to Willa a little earlier about her prognosis because for much of the book Willa was kept in the dark – scared and worried but thinking there was more hope than there was.

Once Ryder realises his feelings for Willa, he wants more than friends with benefits. Unfortunately, that’s all Willa is offering. This leads to a battle of sorts where Ryder tries to hold out against Willa’s wiles until she wants all of him, not just his body. It’s a romance so of course Willa gets over her fears. I expect much of the expansion of the book came at the back end where most of this part plays out. It read kind of like an extended epilogue and while it was entertaining enough it lacked tension and felt overly drawn out.

The narration is very good. It’s dual POV but not 50/50 – or at least, it’s not one chapter from Willa’s POV and one from Ryder’s – the POV goes where the story does so sometimes there are multiple chapters in a row from one or the other character.

Nelson Hobbs has a kind of Keanu Reeves cadence to his voice which I find very appealing anyway but more than that, he has great pacing and intonation and I liked all of his characterisations. His female character voices were solid also.

As much as I enjoyed Mr. Hobbs, it is CJ Bloom who shines brightest in Only When It’s Us however. Chloe Liese uses such wonderful and funny turns of phrase but as is so often the case, they can fall flat in the delivery. CJ Bloom does not miss a trick here. Willa has sharp edges and her banter tends to be on the cutting side – even when it’s internal monologue. Again, not mean but… sharp. Ryder is a big guy and leans hard into the lumberjack look. Willa has many names for him based on his size and there is a delightful rhythm to the delivery by CJ Bloom which makes it work extremely well.

Ms. Bloom had a wide range of emotions to cover in this book as well and her performance around the time Willa was bereaved was quieter, sincere and very apt.

I enjoyed Only When It’s Us very much but it did drag a bit at times – I suspect that’s a product of the “revised and expanded” part but the narration was enough to carry it.

Kaetrin


Buy Only When It's Us by Chloe Liese on Amazon