Pumpkin Spice & Everything Nice (A Cup o' Jo Novel)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
Gilmore Girls fans! Pour yourselves a hot cup of tea and get ready to fall in love with this cozy YA romance that will have you dreaming of autumn all year long.
Fall is a big deal in Briar Glen, a quaint and charming village in New England. That's when tourists from all over the country descend upon this picturesque town to see the babbling brooks and colorful leaves while sipping hot chocolate or pumpkin spice lattes.
But sixteen-year-old Lucy Kane hates the uber-popular PSL. She finds it overrated -- especially when you consider the fact that there isn't even pumpkin in it! -- which is bad because she works at Cup o' Jo, the local coffee shop her mom owns. Business at Cup o' Jo hasn't been great in the off-season, but that's okay because it always picks up during the fall ...
Until Java Junction, a multinational coffee chain, opens across the street and makes things harder for the small shop. And to make matters worse, it turns out Jack Harper, the new kid in school and Lucy's secret crush, is the son of the owner. Suddenly, fall doesn't seem like it'll be all it's cracked up to be. Will Lucy find a way to save her mom's coffee shop?
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Community Reviews
[DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY]
Can this even be considered a romance?
Usually, you don’t want a story to end—that’s how you know it’s good. But I was counting the pages, and honestly relieved when it was over.
Where to begin…
As a teen, I cannot agree that this is a book teens would enjoy—unless they’re into surface-level stories with annoying characters and zero plot or romance. I wouldn’t even recommend it for middle schoolers. I hate criticizing books because I know how much work goes into writing them, but this one truly felt like a rough draft that somehow made it to print. It reads more like a Wattpad upload than a finished novel.
The main character? Total pick-me. Dramatic, self-absorbed, whiny—you name it. The way she treats the male lead is eye-roll inducing. She’s bitter in ways that might have been understandable if the circumstances made sense, but here they just don’t.
And the male lead? He keeps chasing her friendship while she attacks him for no reason, and he’s weirdly oblivious to how unfair she’s being. She plays the victim and thinks it’s cute, and he just goes along with it. Also… who doesn’t know how to use a measuring cup?
Romance? Where?
The high-school setting is even more unbelievable. Everyone acts like second-graders. Who actually bullies someone over a ridiculous nickname—and keeps it going? Maybe this mirrors someone’s real experience, but it came across as cringe and wildly unrealistic. It felt like the author has never actually been in a real high school and is guessing what modern teens are like.
I’m the kind of reader who never DNF’s a book once I’ve committed. Yet this one almost broke me. My friend and I were excited to buddy-read because the premise sounded like a cozy fall enemies-to-lovers vibe. Instead, she got cheated out of her money… she even gifted me a copy so we could read it at the same time! The description promised so much potential; the result was a sorry attempt.
Maybe this happened because an adult tried to write what they think modern teens are like. If so, it’s a sad misperception.
Unfortunately, this book didn’t just disappoint… it shoved me straight into a possible reading slump.
