Getting Over Garrett Delaney

I’m somewhat conflicted in regards to this book. I liked and disliked it in almost equal measure, and I have a lot to say on both fronts. Getting Over Garrett Delaney is most definitely a light summer-type book, and though it’s very enjoyable, I find that the actions of the main character leave a lot to be desired. I think, though, that I should have known better, since the jacket copy advertises exactly what this book is.

Protagonist Sadie has been in love with Garrett Delaney for years. Everything she does is done in an effort to get his attention. She’ll do everything for him—comfort him over his latest breakup, read his pretentious books, make fun of her former friends. Literally, I have never encountered a more pathetic female character than Sadie. Her entire life was defined by Garrett and her hopes that he would notice her, even though the kid is obviously not interested. She’s also the sort of girl who thinks Romeo and Edward Cullen are the Ultimate Last Word in romantic partners. So…yeah.

Now, to be fair, Getting Over Garrett Delaney is exactly what the title suggests: the story of Sadie’s progress toward being less a lovesick bimbo and more her own person. I whole-heartedly applaud Abby McDonald’s message in this book, and I had fun with some of Sadie’s embarrassing mishaps. However, the fact remains that for the entire book (discounting the final chapter), Sadie is hopelessly besotted with the complete asshole who his Garrett Delaney. She constantly claims she’s “not the kind of girl who gives everything up for a guy” when in fact, she is. A few hundred pages of Sadie’s state of denial were frustrating, to say the least.

I don’t know. I appreciate that Sadie eventually wises up to her silliness in the end, but that doesn’t mean I have to like the fact that her intervention was necessary in the first place. Maybe some girls who’ve experienced long-term unrequited crushes might be better able to sympathize with this character. But for me Sadie was not a strong female character at all, and—discounting the final chapter—she seemed to have trouble wrapping her head around the fact that she was completely dependent on Garrett in the most unhealthy way possible. It’s hard to really like a girl who behaves like that, you know?

But at the same time, I somehow managed to enjoy this book to a certain degree. I think that this has a very cute and snappy vibe to it. The story is a tad far-fetched, but it’s fun. Sadie’s partners in her summer project are zany and out-there, but they definitely want what’s best for her. The dialogue was sweet and the overall takeaway is positive, in spite of how dubious I am of the path to that conclusion.

In conclusion, I think Getting Over Garrett Delaney is the kind of book that you can’t take too seriously, but is still mostly enjoyable. I really didn’t like the main character, but I thought the storyline was good, and the book itself is fairly engaging. The good aspects of the text outweighed the bad, though I would be pretty hesitant to recommend this to most teenage girls (myself included). The overall presentation could have been fine-tuned a bit more, but I think the novel is good as is.

Set in modern day Massachusetts, this book is the perfect mix of fun, comedy, romance, adventure and friendship. Sadie is in unrequited love with her best friend Garrett Delaney. She finally realizes that she'll never be his "one" and she creates a twelve-step Garrett detoxing program. But she's not in it alone. She has her old best friend Kayla and her co-workers to help.

I absolutely loved this book and honestly don’t know if there’s anything the slightest bit negative I can say. I’ll try my best at constructive criticism.

At times I found Garrett to be dreamy and others times a passive aggressive jerk. I definitely felt for Sadie though, with Garrett having two or three girl friend's in the time that he's know Sadie and none being her.

I read this book in one (extremely busy) day. I felt that this book was glued to my hands.

This book was absolutely adorable and I loved it!

First, Sadie was a fantastic main character. She drove me nuts with her attitude and pining at the beginning, but we really get to see her grow into herself throughout the story. You think it’ll be really hard to relate to her at first since she’s all “black is the only coffee (according to Garrett) and I only read big, stuffy books” but you slowly start to realize there’s a lot more than that under the surface. I don’t know about you, but I can completely relate to wasting years of my life pining after guys when the relationship simply wasn’t happening or was most certainly doomed which made Sadie even more real to me.

I loved the coffee shop setting because, well, who doesn’t? There’s just something awesome about coffee shops. It was my dream to work at one as a teen. I doubt all of them are as fun as Totally Wired was, but I definitely would’ve loved Sadie’s job. The staff (also making up most of the side characters) were all pretty awesome.

I really enjoyed reading about Sadie trying to get over the guy rather than trying to get him. It was such a refreshing change of pace. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some romance, but this time it was way more fun reading about a girl discovering who she really was, making new friends, and becoming independent.

My one complaint would be the descriptions. It touched very little on what many of the characters looked like past hair color or state of dress which saddened me since my imagination isn’t always the best. The other thing was the description of the summer. That sounds weird, and maybe it’s just me, but I actually kept forgetting it was summer since it was constantly talking about the chill in the air or something. It was just odd.

Final Thoughts: Tired of the same old girl-meets-boy-gush, gush gush-happily ever after? Then this is definitely the book for you. Getting Over Garrett Delaney is a fun, cute contemporary definitely worth the read.