Review: I'll Have What She's Having
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 28, 2014
Authors John Teubner and Craig Laughlin, writing as J.T. Craig, provide another entry in their ongoing short short story series, The Coffeehouse Chronicles, which periodically provides a glimpse at a prototypical big city coffeehouse with all its peculiarities. This particular story, entitled "The Order," hinges on the coffeehouse staff's dedication to getting to know just what their customers want.The story concerns Krista, a regular at the coffeehouse, who, day after day, week after week, orders exactly the same beverage, always paying with the exact change. However, even such a creature of habit as Krista eventually decides she wants to try something different one morning. Unfortunately, she finds that changing her usual order is easier said than done, as a variety of mishaps keep getting in the way of her trying something new.It's a clever story, which economically presents a number of interesting and completely different variations on the same theme in the course of approximately ten pages. To top it off, the authors hit the reader with a totally unexpected twist ending that would have made Alfred Hitchcock himself proud. This is the second one of the authors Craig's Coffeehouse stories I've read, and it's a considerably more complex tale than the first, in part due to the fact that it's a few pages longer. Those extra few pages make the difference between just a setup with a twist ending and an actual story in which a protagonist attempts to work her way through an increasingly frustrating dilemma.I still have the same problem with this story as I did with the authors' earlier story. Namely, they are asking a dollar for a story that's under ten pages long. When I reviewed the authors' earlier story, they posted a comment indicating that Amazon policy requires them to charge at least 99 cents for this story most of the time (I received the story for free during one of the brief promotional periods Amazon allows). I am sympathetic regarding Amazon's policy and I understand that these authors are entitled to make money off their efforts, especially quality efforts such as this story. However, the fact remains that a reader purchasing the story as of the date of this review must pay 99 cents for ten pages and under ten minutes of reading. Ultimately, it's up to each individual reader whether the story is worth it. I personally would be hesitant to pay for the story, but other readers may differ. I can say that this story is markedly better than the earlier story I read because it's a more fully developed, cleverer, and downright humorous (in spots) tale with a terrific ending. On that basis, I feel it's appropriate for me to rate it higher than I rated their earlier story.The authors have taken on a difficult genre (the short short story) and done so quite well. I'm hopeful that they will soon accumulate a sufficient body of work to allow them to compile their various stories in a single collection that would make it easier to justify their asking price. Unless or until they do so, however, all I can say is that this story, judged solely on its quality (as opposed to the value for the money), is one of the better written and cleverest short short stories readers will find on Amazon.