Review: Tasty But Not Very Filling
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 23, 2014
Have you ever wondered about people who seem to hang around coffeehouses all the time and never actually seem to do anything? Well, if you happen to read "The Regular," you may do a bit more than wonder... you may start to worry."The Regular" is a short short story by J.T. Craig, who is actually two different writers, Craig Laughlin, and John Teubner. It's apparently one in a series of similarly very short stories (it's only six pages) by these authors sharing a similar coffeehouse setting. A short short story is somewhat similar to a joke... it usually consists of a fairly brief setup followed by a punch line. I can't say too much about the plot without spoiling this one, but the story concerns one particular coffee house regular who has more on his mind than just enjoying his espresso. Instead, he seems a bit too interested in some of his fellow patrons.The story is extremely short, but it's also quite well written. We get a bit of psychology and a bit of Hitchcockian suspense, followed by a Hitchcockian ending to boot, all in the space of six pages. It's enjoyable in the same way a free sample of Starbucks coffee is enjoyable... tasty, but it's gone very quickly. You have to really spend time thinking about each sentence here to take more than five minutes to finish this tale.And that brings me to the problem of my rating. I got the story for free as a promotion, and I found it quite entertaining. However, the authors usually charge 99 cents for it, and I can't really see anyone paying a dollar for something that's over and done with in five minutes with minimal repeat value, if any, once readers know how it ends. The authors are quite upfront in the description on the Amazon page that it's only a six-page story, but I feel that most readers, even if they are aware of the length, are somehow subconsciously expecting more and will be disappointed when they get to the end that there's no next page to turn to (the story could have continued, to be honest, but the authors made their point).So, as a free story, I would rate the story four stars, but as a story someone has to pay for I rate it 2 1/2 stars, rounded to three. Whether any particular reader enjoys this will definitely depend on whether that reader thinks any six-page story is worth paying a dollar for. If so, be sure to savor this story for as long as it lasts.