[Book Review] Get It Together, Delilah! By Erin Gough & Gloria Jean’s Madagascar Vanilla Caramel Coffee

Title: Get It Together, Delilah!
Series/Universe: Standalone
Author: Erin Gough
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Publication date: April 4th 2017
Page Count: 336 pages
Age Rating: YA (language, vague sexual scene, slight violence, blood)
How I got my hot little hands on it: Received an ARC to review
Publisher’s page: Get It Together, Delilah!

A story about falling in love, literally.

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. Her dad is on a trip to fix his broken heart after her mom left him for another man, so Del’s managing the family café in his absence. Easy, she thinks. But what about:

-homework and the nasty posse of mean girls making her life hell?

-or how one of Del’s best friends won’t stop guilt-tripping her?

-and her other best friend is so in love with his tutor he might go to jail for her if Del doesn’t do something?

But who cares about any of that really, because above all else, she can’t stop thinking about beautiful Rosa who dances every night across the street until one day Rosa comes in the café 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?

My Review

In Get It Together, Delilah! 17-year-old Delilah is going through it! It’s her final year of school and she’s struggling to keep her grades up while dealing with homophobic bullying from classmates. Her father goes on an extended world trip, leaving it up to Delilah to keep the Flywheel, her family’s café, afloat through a string of calamities. On top of all that she’s also dealing with friend drama and a seemingly hopeless crush on Rosa, a college activist/flamenco dancer.

With all the things she’s juggling, it’s inevitable Del’s going to drop the ball on at least one of them – somehow, she manages to drop the ball on all of them.

While there is definitely a romance plotline that weaves throughout the whole book, I wouldn’t really say this is a story about falling in love – although that’s certainly part of it. In my eyes Get It Together, Delilah! could more accurately be described as the story of a teen girl with a stubborn streak a mile wide and a minor anger problem trying to keep her life together as everything seems to fall apart in her life at the same time.

I loved the way this book was written – the flow was on point, chapters were just the right length, and the storytelling managed to hook me in and keep me turning pages, even when I started to get a little annoyed at the main character. Delilah’s stubborn refusal of help and unwillingness to take suggestions began to get kind of irritating the farther I got in to the story, but eventually Del does, in fact, manage to Get It Together and I really enjoyed how it all came together for her in the end.

I love books set in coffee shops and I love strong female characters (even if their stubborn ways get on my nerves at points) so this book was right up my alley and I really liked it. I would definitely recommend it for people who love teen dramas with diverse characters.  The storytelling and writing was fantastic and I would absolutely read more books by this author.

According to Delilah, “nothing brightens the spirits like a Flywheel caramel milkshake”. For a coffee equivalent of this treat, I recommend Gloria Jean’s Madagascar Vanilla Caramel Coffee – a smooth medium roast coffee with the sweet aroma and flavor of creamy vanilla mixed through with ribbons of rich, buttery caramel.