Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe

by Shelley Coriell

 Summary:
 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.

My Rating: 4.5 /5 Stars

My Review:
This book is ALL about Chloe. I can state with utter certainty that if you don't like her, you won't like this book. So let me warn you, Chloe is rather self-involved and a total drama queen. If you don't like it you better off moving on. If you do not mind, she will take you on an amazing journey. Any way you have been warned.

Well, the story is about Chloe, a girl who after school break discovers that not only her guidance councilor is gone so has her rather fluffy project. She also to her utter surprise is shunned by her two best friends. Thrown into what for her is seemingly the end of her life, she ends up doing her indented student project at the slightly tattered school radio station.

The book had so many fun dialogues and scenes I laughed and grinned the entire way through it. And it left me smiling for a long while after I finished.

The entire book is written from Chloe's point of view and her voice is definitely the spoilt self involved teenage girl and it honestly rather irritating. The constant reference to her shoes were super annoying to me. The fact that she did associate her life with them, honestly made me roll my eyes every single time. AND I am a girl, so shoe love comes with the territory. But common, while i do so appreciate them, I never thought they could or would change anything.
Chloe was so off the charts in the beginning. Her blatant obliviousness of the problems or difficulties of others was only surpassed by her constant whining about her own, very petty i might add, issues. Yes her friends were horrid to her, but it becomes very clear that she wasn't there for them when they need her, because she was too self-involved to take note of it.
Chloe thinks that being funny solves all problems, if you make someone laugh you helped them. She has a need to constantly talk, since she can't handle silence and if things get serious she need to make joke or play games.
Saying all these sound terribly negative. And i honestly didn't care that much for her in the beginning of the book. I probably wouldn't have stopped reading after 3chapters or so, but Coriell is a fantastic writer and managed to pack all of this annoyances into a fun read. Because while Chloe was really irritating, I also laughed a lot. And i really liked Duncan, Clem and the other radio peps, not to speak of Grams. She was fabulous right from the beginning. And I am really glad I did read on. Because Chloe changes, she sees past her own shadow. Even tries to be silent at times and turns out to be a great and loyal friend. She still has a big mouth and wears her heart on her sleeve, but I actually really liked that and I can totally relate to that.
When Clem accuses her of being a skate queen. I was so annoyed, because I have been accused of the same thing several times in my life. And while I totally could not relate to the bitch politics of best friends and its aftermath, its not like one chooses the family one is in or that one has no huge disasters in life. But as the story went on, I started to get what she meant. Somehow Chloe does pull herself together and makes things happen, always. So I guess thats a good thing.
Duncan was totally my favorite character. I loved him right from the beginning, and I really enjoyed the contrast he was to Chloe. In fact most of the Characters are sort of a contrast to her and bring her out even more. Coriell managed to make him so different and likable, so intriguing and one get to know him slowly. He is fiercely loyal and very strong, decent and despite the difficulties he has in life he is still hanging in there and never complains.
I found that there were such contrast between the Chloes problems and everybody else's. I mean yeah her granny isn't well, but how does that compare to having a teenage pregnancy, ones mother dying, parents going through a nasty life changing divorce or having a drug addict in the family? I am guessing that Coriell done it by purpose, but for me at the beginning anyway it made Chloe super selfish and whinny.
This book managed to touch so many facets of a young persons life, it still amazes me. I think that's what make is actually genius. And I am still between 4 or 5 stars. Well I am not sure if is should round it up or down.
The end for me was probably one of the best things of the book. the fact that it isn't a happy end. But rather a new start is totally awesome. I really liked how Chloe dealt with her BFF's and I found that her friendship to the radio team had grown subtly to something rather beautiful. I think it's those friendships that actually taught Chloe the most and made her a really likable character.

As I said before I totally couldn't relate to the besties dramas. I never was part of a twosome or threesome or a pack…. I always had close friends but we were never 'exclusive' plus I think how good friends were they if they couldn't even be honest to each other? The interesting thing is, that reading about this not only made me ponder over all those thing, the BFF phenomena, popularity and social status, I ended up having the most interesting discussions about it with friends here on GR and in my 'real' life. I think that by it self makes this a great book. Because while its really fun it stayed with me for a while and made me reflect on many issues.