The Espressologist by Kristina Springer

Title: The Espressologist
Author: Kristina Springer
Published: October 2009 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

My Rating: 3 stars
Tags: YA | Romance | Girls | Realistic
Includes: Sexuality

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.

[From the book jacket]: 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 drink 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?

This was a cute and fun read, with some originality thrown in and a couple of adorable boys. It was a sweet book with realistic characters, but wasn't very deep. More of a "pass the time" light read, and making you thirsty for some hot chocolate that's for sure! The details the author included in the story were great - I had a whole visualization in my head of what the coffee shop looked like.

From Page 142
The blue velvet chairs are gone and now there are several big velvety red loveseats with silver heart-shaped throw pillows. Every table is covered in a beautiful red tablecloth. Silver candelabras with red taper candles are set up on some of the shelves, and small canvases with quotes from famous love poems are spread throughout the store.

I really wish that the characters were more developed, because truthfully I really liked each and every one of them! Jane reminded me a lot of myself, but I would've connected better with her if she was more emotionally or deeply written. A lot of the book was dialogue, and not enough of her thinking to herself - which is the best way to get to know the main character.

I absolutely adored reading about all of the never-ending drink choices and possibilities thrown into the book! This would be the most perfect book to read while sitting in Starbucks! I was introduced to many coffee drinks I had never heard about, and am now interested to try. The drink match-making was an extremely cute and creative idea.

I loved how there was absolutely no profanity in the book. That's right, not a single bad word! There were other ways for the "mean girl" in the story, Melissa, to tease Jane rather than use vulgar. Even though it's sort of unrealistic since they're college drama queens, I still liked reading a book that finally doesn't use curse words in each chapter.

The overall story was extremely predictable, and I'll admit that I was starting to get restless with the plot. I was ready for something new to happen or a big twist in the novel, but unfortunately that wish never came true. But the ending was really cute and sweet! I saw it coming, but I'm still happy with the way things turned out. Also, basically the whole book is based inside the coffee shop that Jane works at, and it would have been nice to have some other settings in the book, too. But in general, it was a cute read to get you in the mood for coffee!

Book Supplied by: Author for review!