If you’re looking for a new book that gives a cute fall vibe, “Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice” by Katie Cicatelli-Kuc is a good book for that. If you liked Gilmore Girls, it definitely gives off that vibe.
The story follows Lucy, the daughter of a woman who owns a local coffee shop in a small town called Briar Glen in New England. She works in the shop, Cup o’ Jo, with her mom, and everyone loves all things fall. Including Pumpkin spice lattes.
She doesn’t share that love of the over-commercialized drink however. She soon realizes that the new kid, Jack Harper, moved in because his parents owned a larger coffee shop that just happens to be everywhere else except in Briar Glen. This book reminded me so much of a classic fall Hallmark movie “Wrapped in a little bit of Gilmore Girls” It did have things that I didn’t like very much though.
The main character, Lucy, didn’t really have much depth to her character other than not liking pumpkin spice lattes because it was so popular, or Java Junction, the new coffee shop, and the owners. She kind of gave the vibe of “I’m not like other girls.” That was pretty much all that was to her.
My Review
I tried to keep reading, because I thought that there would be more said about Jack, the love interest, and I did learn a few things about him, and he was the most in-depth character in the book. This book gave me such high hopes before I read it, which is saying a lot, because I normally don’t read romance novels.
The vibe was so cute and I really liked how the storyline was set up, but the characters were mostly flat. I was just waiting for it to get better, and it sort of did; the characters had a little bit of development. However, it didn’t feel like it was going in the direction of a regular romance novel. Lucy kept changing her mind about Jack through the entire book, and she treated her friends pretty badly at times. I do not know how her friends stayed with her for as long as they did. Her friends were pretty awful to her too at times, and so were all of the side characters too. Her mom is more like her friend, but that just reminds me of Gilmore Girls.
Lucy just kept trying to cause problems that weren’t there. I was actually surprised at how many characters didn’t have a development throughout the entire book. But, it’s just meant to be a short, cute fall read, so it is good story-wise, and I enjoyed that. I just wished that Cicatelli-Kuc at least tried to have Lucy change more for the better than she actually did at the end of the book. All in all, I wished that I enjoyed this book more, but it’s more a book that middle school/early high school kids would enjoy the most.
