The Espressologist by Kristina Springer

Working as a barista at Wired Joe’s leaves Jane Turner a lot of time to observe people. And in between taking all these orders and brewing all that coffee, Jane is struck by a stroke of genius: what if you can tell a person’s personality from the drink he or she most often orders? At first, it’s all an amusing experiment, but when she successfully matches a couple of friends based on their favorite coffee drink, Expressology turns into something more. Jane’ boss hears about Jane’s flavor of coffee-based matchmaking and turns it into a holiday promotion for the coffee shop. So now, Wired Joe’s customers can get a romantic match with their evening coffee. Everything seems to be going perfectly—only, what if Jane’s not making all the right matches?

The Espressologist has everything one would expect from a chick flick: laughs, style, and, of course, romance. While this is all good and fun, though, this novel doesn’t have much of anything else. The story is predictable but still sweet and enjoyable. It’s a very quick read because it’s mostly for entertainment with no real substance. The characters could’ve been better developed as well. To be perfectly honest, there’s not much to be said about this novel because it’s pretty much average on all accounts. I definitely wouldn’t want to relegate it to the group of books I believe should never have been published, but I wouldn’t rave about it to my friends either. So while The Espressologist is a fast and fun read, it shouldn’t really stand out on anyone’s to-be-read bookshelf.

The Espressologist may be enjoyed by fans of How to Hook a Hottie by Tina Ferraro and Kissing Snowflakes by Abby Sher.

Rating: 3.25

Review copy from publisher Macmillan