Review: The Espressologist

The Espressologist by Kristina Springer
3.25 stars

Reasons for reading: Sounded fun; cute cover; 10 in 10 Chick Lit Challenge

Description: "What’s your drink of choice? Is it a small pumpkin spice latte? Then you’re lots of fun and a bit sassy. Or a medium americano? You prefer simplicity in life. Or perhaps it’s a small decaf soy sugar-free hazelnut caffe latte? Some might call you a yuppie. Seventeen-year-old barista Jane Turner has this theory that you can tell a lot about a person by their regular coffee drink. She scribbles it all down in a notebook and calls it Espressology. So it’s not a totally crazy idea when Jane starts hooking up some of her friends based on their coffee orders. Like her best friend, Em, a medium hot chocolate, and Cam, a toffee nut latte. But when her boss, Derek, gets wind of Jane’s Espressology, he makes it an in-store holiday promotion, promising customers their perfect matches for the price of their favorite coffee. Things are going better than Derek could ever have hoped, so why is Jane so freaked out? Does it have anything to do with Em dating Cam? She’s the one who set them up! She should be happy for them, right?"

First lines:
Large Nonfat Four-shot Caffe Latte
Cocky sex-deprived butthead guy drink. Expect only the utmost stupidity to come out of his mouth. So-so body, could stand to work out more. Crappy dresser. Dramatically stares at a woman who comes in with a boob job. He looks like he is going to hurt himself in the contortions he is twisting into . . .

My thoughts: This is a cute little book. Fairly predictable, but still fun. Quite a few reviews used the rather obvious "frothy" as a description, but it fits. I really enjoyed the coffee-matchmaking premise. There was humour and romance. I liked that Jane was able to stand up to her nemesis, a bitchy girl named Melissa. KIWI Magazine's review included this observation: "In the style of Jane Austen’s Emma, Jane can make matches for everyone but herself." I didn't get the Emma thing when I was reading it, but I can sort of see it now.

By the way, I'm a small Christmas-time peppermint mocha, myself. Not sure what that says about me. :-)