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    Get It Together, Delilah!
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    Get It Together, Delilah!
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    Get It Together, Delilah!
    Ebook293 pages3 hours

    Get It Together, Delilah!

    By Erin Gough

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Seventeen-year-old Delilah Green wouldn't have chosen to do her last year of school this way, but she figures it's working fine. While her dad goes on a trip to fix his broken heart after her mom left him for another man, Del manages the family cafe. Easy, she thinks. But what about homework? Or the nasty posse of mean girls making her life hell? Or her best friend who won't stop guilt-tripping her? Or her other best friend who might go to jail for love if Del doesn't do something? But really, who cares about any of that when all Del can think about is beautiful Rosa who dances every night across the street. . . . Until one day Rosa comes in the cafe door. And if Rosa starts thinking about Del, too, then how in the name of caramel milkshakes will Del get the rest of it together?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChronicle Books Digital
    Release dateApr 4, 2017
    ISBN9781452152271
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Get It Together, Delilah!

    3.5/5

    44 ratings16 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I found this to be a delightful and enchanting novel and a quick read. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time in Del's world as she tried to keep her father's coffee shop, The Flywheel, afloat while he was off on an adventurous vacation, all while also finishing high school. I completely related to the fact that she tried to manage the pitfalls of a small retail business with stiff competition largely on her own.I found Del and her friends to be relatable and enjoyable companions and the first person narrative voice rang completely true. I was also pleased to see a gay teen at the center of the story, and that the fact that she was gay was simply a small part of who she was. While kids in school gave her grief about it, it wasn't the center of the story.All-in-all, this was a great read.
    • 4/5
      This was a wonderful book. It was a quick read and I really liked the characters and how they find themselves throughout the book. I really loved that the book showcases a gay female lead and her being so sure of herself. I think that is refreshing for a book/character in the diverse reads realm. Del is strong, determined, and does not take no for an answer, but she is also sensitive, to the point and realistic when she absolutely needs to be. Her friends in the book are there to push her and help her on her journey - in this case helping her fathers cafe survive. So all this love and appreciation, why only 4 stars? Well lets start with the first shocker... I am a thirty year old who reads YA, not a big deal, there are a lot of us. But I felt a bit put out by the author at the beginning of the book- there is a quote about thirty somethings being old, I was so upset I had to show my husband (who laughed at me) but I was saddened by it. Second thing, the missing parent plot - dad is away gallivanting after a bad divorce, teenage kid is left alone but also to run the family cafe too... I was not very keen on that aspect.Overall though the book was enjoyable. The love story is slow moving and I liked that and like I mentioned the characters are realistic and easy to follow. And if you are looking for a diverse book, this one falls in that category.
    • 4/5
      I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Set in Australia, it tells the story of Delilah as she navigates friendship, school bullies, pining after the cute girl across the street, and trying to run the family cafe while her Dad is on a round-the-world trip. That's a lot for a 17 year old to handle. There are some unlikely turns of event, but altogether it was an entertaining story with engaging characters, and I would definitely share it.
    • 3/5
      An improbably story. Teenage Delilah sends her dad on an extended vacation...because he needs it. Dominic who is supposed to run the family cafe in dad's absence, runs a red light, is discovered to be an illegal alien and is deported. It falls on Delilah to run the cafe, despite her lack of any sort of ability to do so.Outed at her school by a willing kissing partner, Delilah is a pariah at school. Meanwhile she has a crush on Rosa Borea, who dances at the restaurant across the street. Every night at 8 PM sharp, Delilah is staring out her bedroom window watching Rosa dance and dreaming of being with her.Meanwhile the cafe is going to pot...failing miserably.Get it Together Delilah is an OK story with OK characters. Nothing monumental here.
    • 4/5
      Read it in two days! It was a quick, easy read that kept my attention. I found myself feeling for Delilah as she tried to organize her life. I felt for her at each heartbreak and near screamed with joy when she got her first kiss with Rosa. It was also heartwarming to see a parent immediately support their child without question.
    • 3/5
      Delilah is seventeen and in her last year of high school in Australia. She's also stuck working endless hours in her father's cafe, the Flywheel, as he goes on a whirlwind world trip: hopefully to mend his broken heart. You see, Delilah's mother, June, left him for another man and moved away, leaving Delilah and her father (and the cafe) all alone. But suddenly Delilah finds herself seventeen and running the Flywheel solo. She has no time for school, homework, or even her friends. She barely even finds time to sneak glances across the street at the beautiful Rosa, whose family runs a nearby business. Delilah thinks Rosa is amazing, but she doesn't know how to tell her (and besides, the last time she fell for a girl, she was bullied endlessly at school). What can she do to get her life on track?This novel has all the makings of a lovely little lesbian YA book. And, truly, many aspects of it are simply delightful. My biggest problem is that I could never get past the fact that Delilah's father left his seventeen-year-old daughter alone to oversee his business (supposedly it was left in the charge of Delilah and another employee, who is quickly removed via a car accident and visa issues). So much of the novel focuses on Delilah's plight of having to save the cafe: ordering the supplies and food, oversight of its finances, and even making major legal decisions in her father's stead. I just couldn't buy it. And she missed so much school; I get that the legal age for that choice is different in Australia than America, but it was very odd. Basically every parent in the novel was completely absent: it seemed really far-fetched. So did asking a "friend" to run the place day-after-day, or to look at the accounts, or make extensive determinations regarding the Flywheel's fate. Or perhaps I'm just a literalist who is no fun.On the plus side, beyond the cafe aspects, Delilah is a sweet character, and it's always refreshing to see a lesbian protagonist in YA fiction. The portions of the novel where she is attempting to work out her sexuality are far more realistic. She is bullied at school (oh how I wish this didn't have to be a staple of teen fiction, because it no longer existed), which does contribute to her unwillingness to attend, and that I can understand. But she's a plucky heroine, and she definitely grows on you. Her cast of supporting characters is actually pretty slight, with a focus on her best friends Charlie and Lauren and her crush, Rosa. None of these are as fully developed as Delilah, but they are fairly interesting.I would have enjoyed this novel more if its focus had been more on Delilah working through her sexuality and relationships versus so much of the Flywheel drama. Some of the scenes with Delilah and Rosa, or her other friends, are very poignant and spot on, and I quite enjoyed them. Unfortunately, the rest of the novel was a bit unrealistic and melodramatic and kept me from enjoying it fully. Still, it picked up at the end, and I did find myself rooting for these characters (and even the darn Flywheel). I also seem to be in the minority with my review, so don't let my feelings stop you from picking up the book.I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and LibraryThing (thank you!) in return for an unbiased review.
    • 2/5
      I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review though LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.I really was expecting a lot more from this book. I am in my late 20s and I read and enjoy a lot of Young Adult books but this one wasn't my favorite. I think a younger audience might enjoy it more (teens- early 20s). Pros:-I liked that this book had a lesbian protagonist who was so up-front about her sexuality from the very beginning of the book. -This book was an easy, fast, somewhat light read. Cons: - This book suffers from a severe case of Disappearing Parent Syndrome... Not only are her parents completely gone from the entire book (her mother has left her father and moved away, and her father has gone on a months-long trip to mend his broken heart), But she is a seventeen year old high school student completely in charge of running her father's cafe while he is away and completely unreachable. This causes a lot of problems for the main character through-out the novel.- There was not enough romance. The main character has a crush on Rosa, a girl who's family runs a restaurant across the street from the cafe. Rosa was probably my favorite part of this book but she was overshadowed by all the cafe problems and friend-drama that the main character has to deal with.- The lack of importance of education seems problematic to me. It is unusual for multiple characters in the same young adult novel to show a complete disregard for school. School seems to be portrayed as somewhat of a nuisance as she's trying to deal with everything else. Obviously in the real world high school isn't most teens' favorite thing but I just didn't like how it was handled in this novel.I probably wouldn't recommend this book, but there are a lot of good reviews for it, so you might still want to give it a try.
    • 3/5
      Get It Together, Delilah! by Erin Gough focuses on the main character Delilah who is trying to handle keeping her dad's little diner afloat, get past bullying at school because she is a lesbian, and falling in love with a beautiful girl who she keeps making herself an idiot in front of. Can she get it all together before everything falls apart?OK here's the thing with this book. There are a lot of great things about it. First, I love the fact that we have a lesbian as the main character. This promotes awareness to LGBTIQA issues and there's a realness to the character. She's strong, feisty, grumpy, but totally likeable and someone I could really visualize meeting (and want to meet). You really want to root for her. I think the mere relatability of the character is reason to read this book. Rosa is gorgeous and amazing, and her best friend Charlie is rather a mess and Lauren, her other friend, grounds the group. That said, the pacing did not quite work for me, and I'm not sure what it was exactly. There were a lot of messages that wanted to come out, and I got confused as to what the focus was-- in fact, some of the side characters seemed to have a bigger character arc than Delilah did. Rosa hasn't come out to her family but is starting to realize she has to. Charlie is a trainwreck and basically falls in love at a drop in a hat but realizes that maybe love doesn't have to be such a dramatic ordeal after all. I think the biggest beef I had with the book is that her father leaves her in this awful position and she FREAKING KEEPS IT TOGETHER somehow. I was so proud of her and yet don't expect any sort of pay off or scene between her and her dad. There isn't one. I felt so completely let down by this ending because of it. Overall, I think there was some wonderful things about it, a feisty heroine worth reading about, but in the end I was disappointed by feeling that the plot was rather aimless and without the emotional payoff I was expecting at the end.
    • 5/5
      I received this as an Advanced readers copy a few days ago.I very much enjoyed this book. In my opinion it was a coming of age Novel because Del (the main character) had to face some pretty strange things for a girl her age but in the end her friends helped her thought it. She had to make decision and fight thought what she thought was right all while liking somebody. I would recommend this book to anybody that wants a fun and light read.
    • 5/5
      This is a review for Get it Together, Delilah by: Erin Gough. I received this book through Librarything.com Early Bird Review. I received an ARC copy of the book. I found this book to be amazing and funny. I fell in love with the characters right off the bat. I love this book!!!!!
    • 4/5
      Get It Together, Delilah! is the kind of queer-protagonist novel I wanted as a teen. Delilah lives in Sydney, Australia with her dad above the cafe they own. Her mom has just run off to Melbourne with a new boyfriend, and dad is heartbroken. So Del sends her dad off on his first vacation since opening the Flywheel, their cafe, and promises to help the manager keep everything in order while he's gone.Naturally, things don't go as well as expected. The cafe manager gets deported and Del is left to run the business herself - she doesn't want to burden her dad by telling him the truth, so she lies that everything is fine and he should take his time to heal from his heartbreak. Del is only 17 and not exactly equipped for the job. Besides, she's got her own personal problems: in addition to being the family breadwinner, she's dealing with bullying (tinged with homophobia), her own broken heart and hopeless crush, and maybe she helped one of her friends commit a crime.Everything seems to be falling down around Del. Really, I wanted to send her to a therapist to talk through her problems the entire book. She's very much 17: as honest as she is about herself and willing to take responsibility, she's also stubborn, self-centered, and rebellious. She reacts to her problems and setbacks with sarcasm and anger. I don't think any of these traits are bad on their own, just so typical of teenagers, and they make everything more difficult for Delilah. She isn't able to "get it together" until she realizes these things about herself.I love that while Delilah's queer identity is central to who she is and contributes to the plot motivations, it is more of a secondary element. The reasons for Del's bullying, her relationships - none of that requires her to be a lesbian. It normalizes being queer as just another thing people are, and the real problem is bullying or having to run an entire cafe (bookkeeping included) before even graduating high school. But at the same time, this is definitely a book about a gay experience: Delilah is comfortable with this aspect of her identity and doesn't hide it.There are a few things about the book that I didn't enjoy so much or that felt off. The most off-putting part is an attempt at straight sex midway through. In context, I could sort of see it as a goofy aside that also shuts down an unrequited crush in a time when both characters needed comfort, but there wasn't any follow-up about the ramifications. It ended up feeling useless to the plot and characterization, and only present to "prove" that Delilah really is gay. (She even says something like "I don't need to have straight sex to know that I'm not straight" before it happens!)The other odd little things are the nearly complete lack of any adult guidance or supervision for the teenage characters and the convenient villains. I was able to go along with both of these for the plot's sake and focus on how those tropes allowed the rest of the story to move along, but it stood out to me towards the end how convenient it all was and how little the consequences were addressed - one of the villains definitely got away easy, if only because Del is too young to have much power over him. I can see other readers disliking the book a lot more because of those things.Overall, I loved reading Get It Together, Delilah! and would definitely hand a copy to my teenage self if I could - the writing is engaging and it was fun to read an Australian book with actual Australian English and culture.
    • 4/5
      When 17 year old Delilah's dad goes off on a months long trip to ease his broken heart, she thinks she will be fine, keeping an eye on things at the family cafe and going to school. It doesn't take long for things to quickly unravel as the cafe manager gets deported, she catches (and subsequently fires) the full time employee for stealing, throw in some good ol mean girl style drama at school, and Delilah finds herself quitting school to take over the running of the cafe. As if that isn't enough for one headstrong 17 year old girl to deal with there is Rosa. The beautiful flamenco dancer from the restaurant across the street who Delilah can't seem to stop swooning over. Can Delilah keep herself (and the cafe) above water or will she (and everything else in her life) sink.Overall, I really enjoyed this book! It was refreshing to read a more diverse YA contemporary novel than the ones that I typically pick up. In fact, I don't think I have read one at all where the main character was gay. I will say, I was becoming slightly disappointed that there really wasn't much of a plot line about Delilah/Rosa until it picked up more about halfway through. Once I really stopped to think about it though, this wasn't a "love" story, it was more about Delilahs journey as she figured herself out; her relationships (peers, familial, past crushes), her goals, and how she relates to and interacts with the world as a whole. Although rough around the edges at times, Delilah was a likable character and her struggles were honest and relatable (no matter what end of the spectrum you are on as far as your sexuality). Being that the book was based in Sydney, Australia, I was stumped more than a couple times when local vernacular and colloquialisms were used (thank you Google!), but I wouldn't say that deterred any from the books likability for me. I think (especially in today's time) the world needs more diverse books, as much for the people who see themselves reflected in the characters, as for those of us who need to see things from a different perspective, one that we may have not considered before. Definitely add this one to your TBR.
    • 2/5
       I am writing this review as part of the Early Reviewers for Library Thing.This book was a moderately interesting read about a teenage girl trying to save her father's coffee shop. The characters were likeable, but I felt like the storyline dragged on a bit. It took me a month to read the book because I felt like I kept having to put it down and read other books before I could finish. I felt like the storyline was a bit off the wall. Delilah is helping at her father's struggling coffee shop, The Flywheel, while he goes off on an adventure. Delilah and her father are coping with her mum leaving them, so she encourages her father to take the holiday. Throughout the book Delilah is trying to single handedly keep The Flywheel running. She doesn't reach out to her father or any family to help. The author brings in a bit of teenage drama, love, and friendship. If you are looking for a book that you can slowly read when you have the spare 20-30 minutes, this is a book to check out.
    • 4/5
      Get It Together, Delilah! by Erin Gough is a charming lesbian young adult romance with a strong lead character who is self-assured but, more often than not, is her own worst enemy.

      After her mother leaves them, Delilah Green encourages her father to take an extended vacation while she takes care of running the family owned diner, The Flywheel. When the situation at The Flywheel become more serious due to her lack of reliable employees and dwindling sales, Delilah decides to take time off from school in an effort to save the diner. Her choice to ditch school is an act of self-preservation since she has been the target of unrelenting bullies due to her sexuality. Delilah is, in many ways, a resilient and likable young woman but she stubbornly refuses to ask for help as the situation at the cafe worsens. Nor is she willing to give a concerned teacher/counselor the opportunity to help deal with the harassment from her classmates.

      With her best friends busy with school, Delilah's friendship with her best guy pal Charlie McFarlane turns out to be the most reliable support during her trials and tribulations. While he is rather fickle when it comes to matters of the heart, he is unfailingly loyal and his irreverent charm and good nature is the perfect foil for Delilah's troubles. Charlie is also exceptionally skilled in the kitchen but he finds himself in a bit of trouble when he impulsively decides to pursue his latest love interest.

      As if Delilah does enough problems in her life, she is the midst of a huge crush on flamenco dancer and uni student Rosa Barea. While she adores Rosa from afar for a good part of the novel, there are a few cringe worthy scenes where Delilah finds herself tongue-tied and clumsy when she has the opportunity to talk to the girl of her dreams. Although they do eventually make progress with their relationship, Delilah's impatience once again causes problems with her fledgling romance.

      Get It Together, Delilah! is a light-hearted and entertaining young adult romance with a great cast of adorable characters. Although some parts of the plot are a tad bit unbelievable, Erin Gough does a wonderful job balancing the true to life issues such as bullying and homophobia with plenty of humor. Although the romance between Delilah and Rosa is just in the beginning stages by the novel's conclusion, it is easy to root for them as a couple. This part of the storyline could have been fleshed out just a little more and while Rosa's hesitance to go public with their romance is realistic, Delilah's reaction is completely understandable.

      An imperfect but completely darling debut that fans of contemporary young adult novels will enjoy.
    • 3/5
      I keep an LGBTQ+ Lending Library in my classroom and this was a welcome addition. I know that my students experience discovering, understanding, and sharting their sexuality diffierently, but I felt as though this book relied heavily on the negative.
    • 4/5
      I received this book as an advance reader's copy from the early reviewers group.This is a modern day YA novel. I enjoyed the relationship that Del and Rosa shared. Young adult life is filled with stress, uncertainty, and joy and this book doesn't disappoint. I would recommend to high school readers and YA fans.