Releasing 10 by Chloe Walsh: A Chemtrails Over the Country Club Inspired Book Review

“I want you only
Like when we were kids under chemtrails and country clubs” – Lana Del Rey

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I don’t think I’m going to get over this feeling anytime even remotely soon. There is something so painfully and achingly beautiful about reading Releasing 10 while Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club plays on loop in the background.

The pairing felt so accidental at first, and then, almost unsettlingly inevitable. Like they were always meant to exist in the same emotional orbit for me. The two are meant to be experienced together.

Only if you’re interested in feeling completely soul-crushed, of course.

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The phrase chemtrails over the country club feels like it captures the entire atmosphere of Releasing 10. The image feels dreamy and nostalgic on the surface, but beneath it sits this unease.

Lana’s sound often floats in softness while threading darkness underneath, and that emotional contradiction feels like the living, breathing definition of Hughie and Lizzie.

I’m on the run with you, my sweet love

Their story completely absorbed me. It’s tragic, beautiful, raw, and so damn frustrating! Their relationship holds that same fragile beauty Lana’s music carries, something romantic but aching at the same time.

From the moment Lizzie and Hughie meet as children, their connection feels inevitable. Two souls recognizing each other long before they even understand what that recognition means. They run toward each other constantly, sometimes toward safety, sometimes toward destruction, but always toward each other.

From the moment I locked eyes on Lizzie Young all the way back in first class, I felt connected to her in a way I had never experienced with anyone else.

Releasing 10, Chloe Walsh

Being together becomes their only safe space in a world that feels increasingly unstable. Lizzie confides in Hughie in ways she cannot with anyone else. No matter how dark the topic, Hughie never retreats from her. Instead, he leans closer, wanting to understand her entirely.

You’re in the wind, I’m in the water

The charm anklet Hughie gifts Lizzie becomes one of the novel’s quiet emotional anchors. A small, almost delicate symbol of someone choosing to see her entirely. It glimmers in the water like a jewel, a fragile promise that she is not alone even when consumed by her own darkness.

That darkness deepens as Lizzie’s past slowly unfolds. Trauma completely reshapes her sense of self, leaving shadows on her physically and mentally. The line “me and my sister just playing it cool” (LDR) becomes painfully ironic given her and her sisters traumatic past.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what you told me, about how you’ve always felt like you were supposed to drown,” he explained, carefully clasping the anklet around my left ankle. “Well, I put that there to remind you that as long as I have air in my lungs, I’ll never let you go under.

Releasing 10, Chloe Walsh

Together, Lizzie and Hughie exist as elemental opposites. She moves like wind, unpredictable and restless, constantly searching for somewhere stable to land. Hughie moves like water, steady and grounding, adapting to hold space for her.

I’m not bored or unhappy, I’m still so strange and wild

Their relationship is built on the sacredness of ordinary life. They dream not of grand romantic gestures but of shared routines, quiet moments of normality, and the comfort of simply existing together.

The future they imagine together is so simple, yet it represents the most profound form of safety they have ever known and wanted. What they crave the most is normalcy. Not boredom, but the steady rhythm of loving someone so deeply that even the smallest of shared moments feel meaningful.

Shivering violently, I watched him kiss my shame away. Because those scars on my wrists depicted the ugliest parts of my mind. But Hugh kissed each one like they were beautiful. Like I was beautiful. Like I was still me.

Releasing 10, Chloe Walsh

But love alone cannot always outrun trauma. Off her medicine, haunted by memories she can’t quite trust, she loses herself and in the process, hurts the one person who never stopped choosing her.

When their relationship falls apart, it’s like they’re both screaming “Can we please get back to how it was when we were kids?” The effortless, ordinary happiness they found as children and ache for now.

It’s never too late, baby, so don’t give up

And yet, even in their destruction, hope lingers. The novel suggests that healing is never entirely unreachable. That truth can still be spoken, and broken people can still attempt to find their way back to themselves, and (hopefully) back to each other.

I’ll always come back to you,” I offered, wanting to fold her into my body and keep her safe. “No matter how often I have to leave, just know that I will always come back for you.

Releasing 10, Chloe Walsh

Lizzie and Hughie were never simply lovers.

They are two souls learning how to survive the wreckage love can leave behind. And perhaps that is what Chemtrails Over the Country Club captures so hauntingly well, the way beauty and devastation often exist side by side.

Like the roots of the tall oak tree in the meadow that sprawled deep beneath the surface of the earth, the love I felt for this boy had taken ahold of my heart to the point where I honestly thought I might die without him.

.Releasing 10, Chloe Walsh