Luxury Cafe Owner

By: Andrew Reise

Narrated by: Michael J Ferry

Alan Pender, a bored, 20-something, college graduate with a degree in general studies woke up the day after graduation and suddenly realized his degree was useless and he had to get a job. As he walked around looking for help wanted signs, a series of unfortunate accidents occurred resulting in him entering a coma. When he woke up, he discovered he'd been granted a mysterious system. Moreover, the system finally provided him with some direction about what he should do with his life. Follow Alan as he explores his new found calling!

©2019 Andrew Reise (P)2019 Andrew Reise

A nice "coffee" brake

This is a good and unique story. Litrpg mix with Rts. After listening to this book it make me want to relisten to to some of the old books in my library. The story start and end of the book is good with this book. A short and sweet novel.

If only I could get my hands on that coffee

Fun story that had some really funny unknown effects the main character causes without them realizing it. did feel a bit stiff with the narration seeming to have pauses but decent enough to enjoy the story

Dad jokes+coffee= a good time.

This novel had me laughing for a hours, reading it straight in one sitting. The audible addition made it even better, as I was able to finish it in the same day.

Presenting us a young man without much of a direction in life as the main character, it subverts the system (gameLit) genre plagued by forced deus ex-Machinas without any fear of making fun of itself.

There was great attention to details in the crafts it spoke about (coffee), and a great cast of lovely and relatable characters.

Overall, it's well worth a listen for the low price of a coffee.

Decent Barista LitRPG

Full disclosure: I received this book free.

Interesting story about Alan, a guy just out of college with a degree in General Education without any noticeable skills or experience. He gets into an accident and receives a consider knock on the head and then gains the quest of being a Barista and ultimately owning his own luxury cafe. Where "gains" can be substituted with forced or coerced.
He gains small quests to to help him become a better barista and ultimately a cafe owner. In this LitRPG, there is a system that helps guide the user along, almost like an Artificial Intelligence that gives him sass as Alan tries to complete his quests.

One large complaint is technical, in Chapter 20, there is a 3.5 minute gap where the audio just cuts out. The time indicator is still ticking down and after the 3.5 minutes is up, the story continues, but further on in the story. So, the missing story is just gone. In the same chapter, there is a point where the same phrase was repeated. Like there was a 5 second reverse button pressed. There was one point early in the audiobook where the narrator sounded like he butchered initializing. Unsure if this was intentional as the phrase was repeated again, but pronounced correctly.
The rest of the book didn't exhibit any audio problems.
Another complaint was with a few plot holes. The system regularly insults Alan, especially in the beginning of the book and repeatedly insults him with one of the repeated insults being Alan isn't attractive which is why situations yield more negative outcomes. This is only in the beginning of the book. None of these insults are levied in the middle or the end of the book. However, Alan is more of an ass at the end of the book and middle of the book, so it seems what the system was potentially implying was that Alan only suffered from negative situations because he wasn't an ass. Alan wasn't making a lot of money until later in the book, so money didn't seem to have an impact on his attractiveness.
The reason Alan come across as an ass, is that he is extremely rude to his clients and does whatever he wants with his business, whenever he feels like it. He is the sole proprietor of his cafe, which normally means it is fine to do whatever, whenever with his business whenever he feels like it. The problem is, his cafe is a luxury cafe and his clientele are the ridiculously wealthy. How wealthy? Enough to afford a pop of $20 a cup. No refills. The regulars also visit the cafe at least twice a day. Alan closes his business without notice a few times and does odd things, like visit his parents in the morning (making him late for work) and visiting the bank to make a loan payment. When one of his clientele show him anger at being made to wait, Alan shows him an attitude and forces the client to back down. This is within a month of his cafe being in operation. I understand that people with artistic or unique skills can have attitude, but seems like that should be reigned in until they are established or at the very least not show that attitude to clients until later. Losing a client that nets you $40 a day everyday the business is open is a chunk of revenue, especially when the cafe doesn't have regular customers.

The narrator did a good job and helped the book.

I didn't know much about this book going in and even with my critiques, I still enjoyed this book and would recommend a listen.

Below are some comments with spoilers

SPOILERS
The author goes over his desires with the book about the ending, in an Author Notes chapter. It outlined the points which was useful as I didn't see all of the hints or points, and some of them, like the system insulting Alan by saying he has a head injury just seemed like more sass and insults from the system.

The ending did seem a bit of a stretch to me. The system was brought about by the head injury in conjunction with Alan's own internal knowledge, his knowledge learnt from other sources from somewhere/something else like watching it on tv or reading about it online. He didn't do any other learning throughout the book. It would have been more believable, and fitting in with the theme, if he had the tv on in his cafe and it had cooking shows on and he learned recipes/skill that way or had the tv or radio on during his off time and heard it in the background.

Seems strange that in Alan's world there is Twitter, but he still has to go to the bank in person to make a payment.

Alan is restricted from making things due to the system. He cannot make more than 1 cup of coffee for a person in a 6 hour period, if he tries the system blocks him. He cannot make a cake until he unlocks the recipe due to the system. The cake is the only food offered in his cafe. Since the system does not allow him to make things and the cafe is open from 7:30 to 8, with no gap for closing for lunch, when and what does he eat?

Refreshing and fun

This was a very fun and light GameLit/LitRPG type novel. Burned through the whole thing in a day and was incredibly satisfied.

Side note: the coffee cake is divine.

loved the story

The story is great yet a bit story only wish it could have been longer

needed to be longer.

while the novel has a rough and Rocky start I assure you that it is worth sticking it out. the characters are likeable and interesting. the premise and the setting are just a joy that gives the MC goals to have instead of him just running around aimlessly.

my issue is that this story needed to be longer. not because of time skips if anything the time skips are handled perfectly to me, but just in general the story needed to be longer.

not by much maybe two more hours or so. anything longer then that truth be told the novel would ware its welcome even with the ending.

I will look into the authors other work later.