ARC Review: Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe by Shelley Coriell

Big-hearted Chloe Camden is the queen of her universe until her best friend shreds her reputation and her school counselor axes her junior independent study project. Chloe is forced to take on a meaningful project in order to pass, and so she joins her school’s struggling radio station, where the other students don’t find her too queenly. Ostracized by her former BFs and struggling with her beloved Grams’s mental deterioration, lonely Chloe ends up hosting a call-in show that gets the station much-needed publicity and, in the end, trouble. She also befriends radio techie and loner Duncan Moore, a quiet soul with a romantic heart. On and off the air, Chloe faces her loneliness and helps others find the fun and joy in everyday life. Readers will fall in love with Chloe as she falls in love with the radio station and the misfits who call it home

Review:

Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe is a fun, bright and seriously radio-tastic debut. There wasn’t much (if anything) that I disliked in Welcome, Caller. The characters were real, the plot wasn’t boring and there was always something happening, and I connected to the situation a lot more than I thought I ever would.

The first character I’ll talk about it Chloe. She’s spunky, always the one to do the cheering up, and has an obsession for antique shoes. Chloe, in the beginning, is told she’s self-centred by her best friend. And throughout the novel we learn how true this is. She can often get caught up doing things that she forgets about other plans. But the thing I loved about Chloe was her need to help people and to change her bad ways. The radio station is Chloe’s way of learning to stop talking and just listen to other people and her development is so believable. The most believable thing is that while she has grown and learnt about her bad ways, and while she has fixed them, they’re still kind of there at times which just makes her more real.

Duncan’s the other character who I loved to death. Duncan, the scarf wearing, fixer of all things mechanic. The relationship between Chloe and Duncan is so realistic and it definitely brings out the best in each other. The other members of the radio station, besides Jester Cam, kind of sit side show, but they’re all very real and are fun to read about!

I’ll admit the first couple of chapters were slow and I didn’t initially like them. But Welcome, Caller has such a good flow that I ended up reading half of it before I had realised! Also, be warned that you will find yourself looking up all the vintage shoes Chloe wears.

There isn’t much I didn’t like about Welcome, Caller to talk about. The characters were brilliant, the plot was unique and the radio aspect boosted my love for it, and overall I just thought this was a brilliant debut that definitely has to be read by others!

Review: 5 stars
Date Published: May 1st 2012
Publisher: Amulet Books
Source: Received for review
Format: ebook
Date Read: April 2012
Page Count: 299
Series/Stand Alone: Stand Alone