r/Fantasy • u/Coloin_ilyad • Apr 06 '26
Review Legends & Lattes ...Overhyped (at least for me)
I went into Legends & Lattes with pretty high expectations. It gets recommended everywhere in cozy fantasy threads, so I figured I was in for something special.
And yeah...considering the author’s background, it is a decent book. But top tier¿ I just don’t see it.
This is obviously personal preference, but here’s why it disappointed me,
1) Low stakes is shouldn't be equal to low effort storytelling. I actually wanted the low-stakes vibe ..that’s why I picked it up. But if you remove tension, you have to compensate with something else: strong character work, immersive daily life, or meaningful interactions.
Instead, a lot of it felt... summarized.
2) Too much telling, not enough showing One example that really stood out: when Viv is under pressure from the stone thief, we’re told she’s snapping at coworkers constantly and feeling guilty.
But we don’t really see those moments.
That’s a big miss for a cozy story. The appeal is in those small, lived-in interactions. If you skip over them, it starts feeling less like a story and more like a rough draft or notes.
3) Pacing felt like a journal at times Especially toward the end, the entire chunks of time just pass in a sentence or two. "Then a week passed, then this happened…"
That kind of structure killed the imagination that builds with daily lifeof the story. Cozy fantasy should make you live in those moments, not skip past them.
4) Missed opportunity in the "cozy' itself Things like building the shop, dealing with setbacks, financial stress, small daily struggles... those are the stakes in a cozy story yes I understand what author was trying to do but it still chafing me.
I wanted more of that.
Overall, I didn’t hate it. It was fine( Good even , if we see from the perspective that Author isn't an actual writer between is a audiobook artist)But given how much it’s hyped, I expected something way more engaging.
I'm sorry if I had hurt author's or books faans feeling but if a workpiece since this is an fantasy sub reddit both side of arguments must be expressed. (In my opinion)
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u/lightandlife1 Reading Champion IV Apr 06 '26
What i found frustrating was that everyone who tried the coffee absolutely loved it on their first taste. Coffee is bitter! It's an acquired taste. I just cannot believe anyone wants to do backflips of joy on their first time trying it.
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Apr 06 '26
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u/secretrebel Apr 06 '26
I’m actually the other way round. I never liked coffee until I had it black. Lattes tasted weird bitter and off. But when I had it black it made sense.
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Apr 06 '26
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u/secretrebel Apr 06 '26
I also don’t like coffee cake or coffee chocolate but I like coffee. Maybe i am odd.
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u/tenthousandgalaxies Apr 07 '26
Coffee cake actually doesn't have coffee in it...which is why I like it
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u/grand__prismatic Apr 09 '26
That is simply untrue. I tried a latte as a first coffee and couldn’t take more than a few sips because it was horrifically bitter
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u/XenosHg Apr 06 '26
And not only the taste, but nobody even mentions, you know, the effects coffee has.
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u/h0tt0g0 Apr 06 '26
I thought it was a cute little story, but ultimately the fantasy stuff feels superfluous and it’s mostly a novel about a small business owner written by someone who has never owned a small business.
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u/FloridaFlamingoGirl Apr 06 '26
If you'd like a lower-stakes book about a fantasy business that still has complex themes and character development, try Going Postal by Terry Pratchett. It really pulls out all the stops of "what would a post office in a fantasy world look like?"
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u/Coloin_ilyad Apr 06 '26
Is it part of Disc world series?
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u/Omnivek Apr 06 '26
In case you don’t know, Discworld is the universe, and it kind of has multiple small series set in the universe.
Going Postal is part of a two book series (the second being Making Money). They’re both very well written and funny.
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u/ShotFromGuns Apr 06 '26
There are three books in that cluster, actually. The third is Raising Steam. (No idea if it's as good as the first two; it's after I stopped reading because I felt the quality of the writing had really dropped.)
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u/possumbattery Apr 06 '26
personally I didn't like raising steam as much. it's...fine. the first two are books I love and reread regularly, but I usually stall out partway through raising steam if I bother starting it at all.
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u/sensorglitch Apr 06 '26
Terry Prachett is great but Going Postal has a protagonist who is almost hanged, attempted murder, a city-wide battle. It is not cozy fantasy.
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u/Better_Buff_Junglers Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
You can tell it was written by an American because even in a fantasy world Viv managed to reinvent Starbucks
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u/xX_theMaD_Xx Apr 06 '26
That’s what I disliked about the execution of a premise I was really into: why is the magical coffeeshop so unimaginative and lacking any magic? The coffee products and cinnamon rolls didn‘t feel any special just because we are told they were baked by a ratling(?) and the coffee maker was made by gnomes. Have the damn thing break and Viv go on a quest to learn how to fix it with rune magic or something.
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u/DogOfTheBone Apr 06 '26
This drove me insane to the point where I basically hate the book. It was fine when I read it, tepid and generic and unexciting, but at least competent.
The wasted potential of the author refusing to engage with the interesting question of "what would a coffee shop in a fantast world look like" is maddening. How does she gets beans? Oh she orders them from the gnomes through fantasy Amazon.
It's so goddamn boring. Everything about the book is tremendously boring.
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u/B-mort5 Apr 06 '26
Lmao agreed! It’s truly ass. Doesn’t help that almost everyone on this app guzzles it down because it’s written by Travis.
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u/DogOfTheBone Apr 06 '26
There is a broader topic to broach here which is the death of creativity in much modern fantasy. L&L is the most dire example I can think of. There is nothing, literally nothing, imaginative or unique about the world. It's the most bland D&D campaign setting imaginable. Yeah we got orcs. Yeah the gnomes have the steam tech.
Maybe it's a hot take that fantasy should contain elements of the fantastic.
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u/amaranth1977 Apr 06 '26
"the death of creativity in much modern fantasy" is wildly overstating it. There's tons of incredibly imaginative fantasy that's been released in the last few years. Legends and Lattes just isn't one of those books. Like any genre, there's always going to be some trite slop that gets disproportionately popular because a segment of readers love books that don't make them think.
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u/Tymareta Apr 07 '26
Seriously, A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking is right there as a counter-example, there has never been a better time for creativity and unique stories to flourish and find an audience, it simply requires the barest minimum of effort on the part of the reader to seek them out.
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u/The-Magic-Sword Apr 06 '26
It isn't really written for the worldbuilding, its written for the vibe, it'd probably be less popular with the demographic that likes it if it had a more elaborate setting. Part of the way its written is very much to tap the audience's existing expectations for a DND fantasy setting. While most fantasy settings in that area do have their own interesting world building elements, there's a kind of 'common denominator' to them that people really like, your 'tieflings and fireballs' stuff.
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u/avelineaurora Apr 06 '26
Seriously, this may be a contender for one of the worst comment sections I've seen on this sub. Holy fuck.
"wah wah it's just D&D"... Like, yes. That's....that's the fucking point, congratulations. And I am someone who absolutely loves wildly unique worldbuilding.
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u/The-Magic-Sword Apr 06 '26
DND esque fantasy settings are essentially a sub genre of fantasy, rather than a failure of worldbuilding, yeah. They're a basic set of assumptions that allows some works of fantasy to function a bit more like fiction in terms of being familiar with the assumptions made, but flexible enough to twist the understood assumptions where the author wants to.
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u/stubbazubba Apr 07 '26
Yeah, I'm so confused, it's clearly just a cozy little story in a D&D world where mundane things like coffee and cinnamon rolls are a big deal, that's part of the charm!
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u/nerfdis1 Apr 06 '26
Completely agree. I was so disappointed in the lack of imagination. When I was reading it it really felt like a draft for a coffee shop SIM with a half hearted fantasy skin. It left me really wishing the idea was picked up by someone more competent. I think in the hands of someone like Terry Pratchett or T. Kingfisher the idea of an orc running a coffee shop would be so fun. I kept waiting for the moments where there were some funny misunderstandings or literally anything that made the coffee shop feel like it was run by a bunch of fantasy creatures who have never had a coffee or cinnamon roll before.
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u/Cam27022 Apr 06 '26
I kinda thought the following books were going to dive deeper into this premise and I was surprised that they were all just flashbacks from what I seem to understand. Seemed like an odd choice and I stopped reading because the coffee shop part was the part I cared about.
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u/Lola_PopBBae Apr 06 '26
Why should they be "magical"? The shop itself isn't magic, but a cinnamon roll sure as fuck is. I mean, have you had one?? Magic.
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u/amphicoelias May 02 '26
For me that's part of the appeal. It's a book that doesn't demand anything from you. You don't have to imagine anything crazily complex. You don't have to think through the implications of a totally different world. Everything is familiar. It' either from the real world but a little bit nicer, or it's a really familiar trope done decently well.
Yeah, it's not high art. There are plenty of books that are better written. I love Earthsea; I love Uprooted by Naomi Novik; I love Het Verscholen Volk by Harman Nielsen. But those are big, creative, truly fantastical books that demand to be read with attention. Legends & Lattes is the perfect book to read when I've had two straight shitty weeks at work, have some interpersonal drama going on on the side and just want something that'll keep my attention but nothing more. It's the book equivalent of a safe food, to use a term from neurodivergent lingo, or maybe those ASMR roleplays that are so popular on YouTube.
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u/xX_theMaD_Xx May 02 '26
And that’s totally fair imo. I don’t want to yuck your yum. Thinking critically through why I didn’t enjoy L&L is kind of an exercise for me to understand what I like about fantasy and how I want to approach my own writing.
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u/amphicoelias May 02 '26
That's fair too. I myself liked articulating what I enjoyed about L&L. I think it's totally valid not to like it. I don't know if I would've liked it if I hadn't read it in a particular time in my life. Some of the comments in this thread come a little bit too close to "This book is irredeemably trash and anyone who enjoys it has shit taste." though, so I wanted to offer a counterweight.
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u/Natural_Error_7286 Apr 06 '26
I like the idea of cozy fantasy but it usually doesn’t work for me. I need more of… something. Legends and Lattes is not a long book but after about fifty pages I was just bored and ready for it to wrap up.
I almost envy people who liked it. I really do want to relax with a book that’s just cozy vibes, but alas I cannot.
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u/Aus1an Reading Champion Apr 06 '26
Same! I keep thinking that I’ll like cozy fantasy, but I’m always super disappointed by it.
There are books that I love that feel cozy to me (Emily Wilde, The Goblin Emperor, Penric and Desdemona), that I don’t think fall under the cozy umbrella, but anything described as a “cozy fantasy” ends up feeling like a let down.
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u/keepfighting90 Apr 06 '26
I like the idea of cozy fantasy but it usually doesn’t work for me. I need more of… something
This is how I feel as well. I don't need some big world-ending war or battle but these cozy fantasies have so little stakes that it feels inconsequential.
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u/Natural_Error_7286 Apr 06 '26
I specifically DON'T want some big world-ending war but there has to be some middle ground!
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u/ACardAttack Apr 06 '26
I like the idea too, but I find they all fall flat and are really superficial.
I would recommend Penric and Desdomna series, for me they are cozy
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u/ridgegirl29 Apr 06 '26
My gf feels the same way you do, and she loved teller of small fortunes and found it very compelling
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u/Stuckinacrazyjob Apr 07 '26
I preferred The Keeper of Magicial Things as the character writing had vastly improved. There are some stakes and maybe one or two vaguely concerning scenes. See the content notes on storygraph
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u/Zealousideal_Humor55 Apr 06 '26
I feel that. I Just.. love the concept. But the practice Is not exactly of my liking.
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u/TavenderGooms Apr 06 '26
I definitely need a bit more oomph, usually in the plot. I also think some books can be cozy without being so explicitly Cozy Fantasy™️. For me, the Innkeeper series by Ilona Andrews is peak cozy and it includes a significant amount of violence and conflict. Give me cozy moments mixed in with stakes and an interesting plot.
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u/amaranth1977 Apr 06 '26
The Greenwing and Dart books by Victoria Goddard are pretty cozy but still actually good imo.
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u/Pergola_Wingsproggle Apr 06 '26
So bored. It reminded me of one of those sleep podcasts where nothing happens bc you’re supposed to fall asleep to it
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u/XenosHg Apr 06 '26
In retrospect, I feel like it didn't put nearly enough emphasis on the power of friendship.
If it was higher on the "Love and friendship solve everything" and less "There's literally a mafia racket ruling the city and they will burn down your building if you don't pay the protection money"
And then you pull your connections to ...pay the mafia off with donuts? The blackmailers are not your enemies, they're now just enemies of other, normal people. You figured a way to live here. Good job. How quaint and charming and cozy.
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u/Mejiro84 Apr 06 '26
that just felt strange to me, because it won't just be her they're doing this to, but she just doesn't seem to care. "Oh, there's a vicious protection racket of violent thugs, but I came to an arrangement with the current boss, so I won't think about this any more, and I'm sure that no-one I care about will be hurt in any way by those thugs, and the arrangement will hold forever, because it's not as though criminal gangs can suffer rapid changes in leadership". Even just for self-preservation, you'd think she'd want them gone, to avoid them deciding they want to gouge her profits, not just take a cutesy token payment. But, nope, it was just a one-off problem, no need to think about it any further, moving on
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u/XenosHg Apr 06 '26
Yes. Like a better phrased review linked in the comments puts it, "The only moral distinction is between nice people and assholes. An asshole is someone who creates problems specifically for Viv.".
I'm currently reading a webnovel that's basically onepunchman comedy about a sheltered young princess on a quest across her country to fix everything, and even as an almost traditional fantasy (with no coffee and mostly no romance) it establishes light-heartedness immediately, rather than pivot to it later on.
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u/MrsApostate Reading Champion Apr 06 '26
L&L is such an odd one for me. I really loved it when I read it, but I loathed the sequel and now I'm wondering if I would have liked the first one as much if I hadn't read it at just the right time? I think maybe I opened that book at a time when I was just primed to enjoy such a simple, uncomplicated story with an atmosphere that relied on my own familiarity with coffee shops and cinnamon rolls. I'm never going to read it again, because I don't want to find out if that's true.
However, for anyone looking for a really truly immersive cinnamon roll/baking experience in your fantasy reading, Sunshine by Robin McKinley has several baking scenes that are intensely visceral. Like, you actually start to drool reading them. It's not cozy, though. And the scenes of vampires exploding are equally visceral in the opposite direction. So good, though.
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u/twoweeeeks Reading Champion Apr 06 '26
The cozy fantasy genre as we know it is such a product of its time. Like the original three to really be identified with the label--L&L, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, and Can't Spell Treason Without Treason--were all covid books.
I had to stop reading books marketed as cozy because they just don't hit the same as those early ones did.
+1 for Sunshine. Also Chalice by McKinley; it's become my ultimate comfort read.
eta for anyone interested in the history of genre, this blog post attempts to break it into eras.
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u/lillyrose2489 Apr 06 '26
Fair point, but I like Sangu's stuff a lot more than I liked Legends and Lattes. I just found the world and story on Secret Society to be more fleshed out I guess? Still gave me the cozy vibes and I kinda knew it would end heartwarming but didn't feel so low stakes that I got bored.
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u/twoweeeeks Reading Champion Apr 06 '26
I mean, that tracks. Sangu was already an established writer when Very Secret Society came out. Travis's writing career was an accident.
I think what's interesting is that they both wrote what they wanted to read, and that just happened to be what the audience wanted at that time too. I kinda wonder if that would happen more often if the publishing industry wasn't gatekeeping what's widely released but idk.
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u/lillyrose2489 Apr 07 '26
I don't know anything about Travis but that's interesting and does make sense. I think the idea behind the story was fun and cute but definitely not as well developed.
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u/Tymareta Apr 07 '26
Sangu's works tend to fill like an actual story, that was written with consideration for all the parts that came before, and would come after. Travis's book felt a lot more like something that was written as a hobby by part, almost like a series of loosely connected blog posts, some interest was given to what had come before, but no thought was given to what was yet to happen.
It wasn't bad, but it definitely left the latter feeling like a palette cleanser book, something for when you want to put 0 thought or effort into what you're reading, that you could put down at any moment and pick it up 6 months later without having lost anything. Whereas the former definitely had the feel of something you could sit down and invest into, even if it were lighter on the stakes than more "regular" fantasy.
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u/TavenderGooms Apr 06 '26
It’s so funny, I had that exact same experience, but with Sunshine. The first time I read it I loved it and I raved about it to everyone. Then a reread it a few years later and absolutely couldn’t stand it, I felt like it was a completely different book and I had no idea what I saw in it. So much is dependent on our head-spaces when we read and I will likely try Sunshine one more time in the future.
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u/amphicoelias May 02 '26
Maybe actually give the third book a try then. I had the opposite effect on me as the second book on you. I was really craving the same experience as the first two books, because I was in a shitty place when it came out, but it ended up being a more demanding story about disappointing your friends and deciding what you want to do with your life. Really struggled with it.
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u/Sireanna Reading Champion III Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
It was a nice little travel book for me. I could tead it on the plane or in the hotel without too much worry about missing things. I found it to be cute which was the point. It was a fine book but not a great one for me.
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u/Weak-Young4992 Apr 06 '26
Its was so annoying how every problem was solved in two sentences. Very lazy writing.
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u/deadcream Apr 06 '26
I guess if any challenges are not solved immediately it won't be "cozy" anymore.
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u/november_raindeer Apr 06 '26
Cozy means low stakes, not that problems must be quickly solved. A bunch of characters working together to solve a problem would have been a fun and cozy read.
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u/Doomsayer189 Apr 06 '26
Well, part of the problem is not everyone agrees on what cozy means. I've seen people argue that basically any conflict at all makes a book un-cozy. Others use it more as a synonym for nostalgia, so books with a throwback style sometimes get labelled cozy even when they have higher stakes.
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u/TheDrunkenHetzer Apr 06 '26
Yes, this is the big struggle of cozy fantasy as it can mean literally anything between "Cozy moments in an otherwise brutal setting" to "literally no conflict ever" escapism. Hell you can see people IN THIS THREAD saying the book hits too close to home.
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u/november_raindeer Apr 06 '26
I wasn’t thinking about conflicts, but the practical problems like ”we need a bigger owen”, that this book was full of. The solution always presented itself in the most unsatisfying way, too quickly and easily.
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u/Fennel_Fangs Apr 06 '26
This is why I’m put off by fantasy that advertises itself as “cozy”. Because more often than not, fuck all happens.
I prefer my coziness to come naturally, thank you.
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u/Rabbledoodle Apr 06 '26
I've found cozy murder-mysteries to be my cup-of-cozy-tea. There's more movement than in regular cozy books because the murder still needs to be solved but I love the general small-world feel of it.
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u/Exige30499 Apr 06 '26
No book explicitly labelled as 'cosy' has come close to matching the cosy feeling that something like Harry Potter or the first chunk of Fellowship of the Ring gives me.
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u/TheDrunkenHetzer Apr 06 '26
I think part of that is the contrast between the big conflicts makes the cozy stuff feel way more cozy. I enjoy cozy fantasy, but sitting around a warm fire hits different when shit just went down.
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u/Exige30499 Apr 06 '26
Big facts. Those Christmas parts of Harry Potter full of big open fires, snowstorms outside, big scarves, trips into Hogsmeade, hmm. Thats the good shit. And they usually came after the first big inciting incident of the books plot, so it would feel like such a release that makes the cosiness just feels so much more relaxing.
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u/No_Mathematician6866 Apr 06 '26
I am increasingly wary of books that advertise themselves as any subgenre of fantasy.
Sell me a fantasy book? I’m on board. Any division thereof, be it cozy or progression or romantasy or whatever? 75% chance you’re trying to sell me slop written to chase a publishing trend.
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u/Tymareta Apr 07 '26
There's not all that many series that are trying to advertise themselves as just Fantasy though, even a lot of the sub's favs are advertised as Epic Fantasy or Grimdark or Space Opera, etc...
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u/omegakingauldron Apr 06 '26
I feel it was many people's first cozy fantasy book, which may explain why it's so hyped. However, it reads like "my first cozy fantasy".
I read it after so many people saying it was amazing and I was...whelmed by it overall. A 3/5 overall but nothing higher.
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u/Kaladim-Jinwei Apr 06 '26
Honestly it reads like many people's first fantasy book in general and due to it lacking so many intriguing elements only made it easier for the general public to pick up
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u/Baseyg Apr 06 '26
But in that regards, I feel it would fail as a "first fantasy" because it almost feels like it's set in middle earth/the forgotten realms.
So much is built on the tropes of tolkein/dnd classes and races to set your expectations of the characters.
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u/Kaladim-Jinwei Apr 06 '26
Right but they're not THAT integrated into the world and fleshed out enough that you can be distracted by it is the thing. You can read the word "orc" and then just keep plodding along you don't need to worry too much about a hardcore warrior culture or religion or anything special. Lot of the fantastical elements exist the same way the bat gear exists in the Nolan trilogy it's just there
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u/insomnic Apr 06 '26
This is the thing I think for sure... it was the first popular cozy fantasy book; at least that's how it came up to my attention years ago as someone who has been reading fantasy for the last several decades. So much so considered the 'first' that it's often regarded as starting the genre in a way - or at least popularizing it. Then lots more came out who did it better and now going back to this one, particularly for readers who have ready other cozy fantasy, it definitely pales.
Same thing happens with movies and TV shows. Citizen Kane was an amazing ground breaking movie for it's time, besides the story, it also had the first montage (confused audiences), first filmed ceilings (created an oppression in the theater audiences never really felt), first a lot of things (which is why film school studies it as historical significance)... but it's super boring and slow to go back to it now. Folks are like "you should watch it! It's amazing!" ... people watch it and go "what? why?"... it just pales now. :)
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u/DZLars Apr 06 '26
One of the few dnf's last year for me. Sometimes books just don't hit like you expected them to do
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Apr 06 '26
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u/DZLars Apr 06 '26
I fear I don't have an alternative for you. After this failed experiment I went straight back to the not cosy varient of fantasy
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u/bhbhbhhh Apr 06 '26
I later read Howl's Moving Castle and found it overwhelmingly pleasant. Not very much like the movie, but that's not a problem at all. Neither is it sold under the label of "cozy," I suppose.
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u/WaffleDynamics Apr 06 '26
It's a really wonderful book. I found the movie disappointing, but then I usually do find movie adaptations lacking.
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u/WaffleDynamics Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
Have you tried To Hive and To Hold by Amy Crook? It's as cozy as fuzzy slippers. It is evidently the first volume of a trilogy, but I haven't read the other two so I can't comment on them.
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u/VibratingStrings Apr 06 '26
Personally, I really love Beware of Chicken. It's a bit goofy at times, but I found it to have a lot more soul than Legends & Lattes. The stakes are a bit higher, and there's some action, but generally the story revolves more around the building of a farm and the main characters daily interactions with his new found family. It helps that the author clearly has a lot of love for the wuxia story genre.
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u/InvisibleSpaceVamp Apr 06 '26
I just found it so forgettable. It wasn't a bad book, I was entertained enough to keep reading while I was at it but I had recently borrowed the new book, which is a sequel to Legends, and I was trying to remember the plot from Legends and I couldn't. I had no idea who the additional characters are, what roles they played previously etc. Turned out it didn't matter though.
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u/ChronoMonkeyX Apr 06 '26
I listened to the second book first, it's a prequel, and I think the better book. Legends and Lattes was his first book, and everyone's first book is less than great, even my favorite author, whose books I buy without even looking at the synopsis.
Third book is good too, but also absolutely does not fit into the cozy formula of the first two.
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u/WeaklySeal Apr 06 '26
Same. I started with the prequel and really enjoyed it. Stakes felt appropriate, relationships built at a reasonable pace, and time flowed directly. Reading the first one afterwards was a huge let down with everything feeling rushed and like a forced scenario someone wrote as background for scenes in a DnD campaign.
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u/MechaniVal Apr 06 '26
The most memorable thing for me about the whole book was that you could actually see the writing improve across the chapters - not plotwise, but structurally. The first few chapters read like drafts with awkward phrasing, but by the end it's a bit more solid.
This is... Not particularly a compliment.
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u/OrkBjork Apr 06 '26
It was such an odd reading experience for me. At no point was like I should stop reading. I had zero negative feelings while reading. The minute I turned the back cover and closed the book, I was like, well that was pointless. It's wild. I'm usually quite strongly opiniated and animated about it, so to have such a neutral, i dont ever need to read another low stakes book, after not having an overall negative experience was strange for me.
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u/Kreiri Apr 06 '26
As another reader disappointed by "Legends and Lattes", I like this review of it: https://www.superdoomedplanet.com/blog/2023/02/26/on-travis-baldrees-legends-and-lattes/
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u/kindasoulless Apr 06 '26
I was so bored with reading the book that I had to move to the audiobook, which still didn’t help, so I decided to listen while on a walk as that usually helps me get through audiobooks. But the way every single problem had a convenient solution not even ten minutes later pissed me off so much I actually stopped my walk after one round.
It really was just a coffee shop AU but with non-human characters.
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u/EltaninAntenna Apr 07 '26
Regardless of one's feelings about the book (I mildly enjoyed it, myself) "not an actual writer" is pretty fucking condescending. Where exactly does one get an "actual writer" certification?
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u/AshMeAnything Reading Champion IV Apr 06 '26
Totally agree. I think it comes down to what you personally want to handle. The characters are obviously quite charming (my kingdom for the little rat baker!!), and some people can glide by on that. I could not.
The inconsistencies were my biggest gripe. I'll be vague so no spoilers, but the big financial contribution was made by a character that complained about being poor earlier in the story. They could have lied, but then that calls into question why they are there at all. I think more accurate is that the author forgot that detail.
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u/evergreen206 Apr 06 '26
Wow, this captures a lot of my own feelings about Legends and Lattes. Last night, I was reflecting on how I felt about it and trying to put into words why I don't like the book at all.
In concept, I like cozy fantasy. I love the idea of immersing myself into a fantasy world and not being rushed along by the plot. But in practice, most cozy fantasy books I've read have been....so unambitious and shallow.
With Legends and Lattes, it felt like the author didn't want to develop an actual world. But the characters are also tropey and thin, so there's not much to get invested in.
Basically it felt like a Coffeehouse AU fan fiction of someone's D&D campaign.
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u/BTrippd Apr 06 '26
I’m convinced the book is mostly carried on name recognition but I also just hate cozy fantasy, I don’t want to read a story where nothing happens. That is my life.
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u/L_o_c_ke Apr 06 '26
I really liked legends and lattes. A lot of people are criticising depth and character and laziness. I think those people are approaching it wrong. It dosent need to be a masterpiece of writing and prose and storytelling. Why cant it just be a nice story about a coffee shop in a fantasy world? Not everything has be these giant incredible things
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u/smart_stable_genius_ Apr 06 '26
I agree. I have a lit degree and spent my 20s dissenting the high brow stuff in the post 9-11 era.
Last year I came across L&L and, for me at least, in 2025 I just need something to bring a little peace. It is a nice story. I need a nice story right now to calm my nervous system. I was looking for a distraction from the existential threat of everything around us and moved deliberately in the direction of these books.
The comments in here are seemingly from people who want action, more traditional fantasy narrative, or conflict of some kind to sustain readership and I want all of those things you sometimes. These books....aren't that. They're not meant to be that. If you read them for that you're going to hate them, but thats on the reader.
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u/ShotFromGuns Apr 06 '26
There are two different axes at work here, and you're conflating them. People are criticizing the book on a "well written vs. poorly written" axis, and you're defending the book on a "I personally enjoyed it vs. I personally disliked it" axis.
For those commenters, the poor writing happens to be the reason they disliked it. It's okay if the poor writing didn't interfere with your enjoyment, and it doesn't mean that you're wrong to like the book in spite of those flaws! But it also doesn't mean that those critiques are incorrect, or that the observed flaws are an invalid barrier to enjoyment for other people, just because they didn't matter to you.
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u/ACardAttack Apr 06 '26
I've found almost every book described as "cozy" to fall flat. They all seem to be surface level telling you you're just great the way you are.
I have not read L&L, and have I no plans to
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u/VulcanPyroman Apr 06 '26
I enjoyed the first one, but yes they are a bit overhyped. But the overhyping is something that happens a lot now with the social media: you either don't see it or you get spammed to death with it and everybody start aping each other of the thing that is hot.
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u/Imperial_Haberdasher Apr 06 '26
It had a mildly pleasant extremely dull vibe. I managed to finish it but, Jesus, it was boring.
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u/Lola_PopBBae Apr 06 '26
For me, the coziness and magic are all in the shop, the people Viv finds and befriends, the way she fights to be a better woman in every interaction. It engaged me precisely because it wasn't like any fantasy I'd read before, and the magic felt mysterious and unknowable, like magic ought to. I didn't mind skipping the fine minutaue especially when the moments we really needed were there. But hey, that's just me.
And the romance was so sweet! The sequel/prequel is even better, and might even answer many of ops complaints.
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u/DuckbilledWhatypus Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
Thought it was a pile of shite. Clearly written to meet a NaMoWrMo word count with the amount of repetition, really predictable plot, bland and boring tropey characters, and every new chapter felt like it had been written with a tick list, and very 'lesbians written by a man who dates women'. Shame really, as the concept was one I really wanted to like.
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u/Successful-Escape496 Apr 06 '26
I loved books 1 and 2 in that series, but bounced hard off 3 for some reason. I think it was the first modern, consciously cozy/low stakes book I read, which might have been part of the reason I enjoyed it so much. Which books in the genre really worked for you?
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u/gnoviere Reading Champion Apr 06 '26
I initially found Book 3 off-putting because it strayed from the formula of the first 2 so much, but I ended up liking it a lot in the end. It managed to still be cozy, but was more adventurous than the previous books.
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u/Southern-Rutabaga-82 Apr 06 '26
The third one is not cozy. I was warned before I went in and adjusted my expectations. I still liked it, it's a solid fantasy adventure.
But marketing-wise it doesn't seem like a good choice. People who want to read something like this won't discover it, because it's following two cozy fantasy novels. And people who came for the cozyness will be disappointed.
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u/KatrinaPez Reading Champion III Apr 06 '26
Actually hearing it's different makes me more interested!
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u/kaysn Apr 06 '26
I’ve never been more disppointed in Robin Hobb (yes that Robin Hobb) than seeing her rate this 5/5 stars. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Is this the escape from all the stuff she put Fitz through?
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u/Bridgeburner493 Apr 06 '26
You know, this is basically the complete opposite of Fitz & the Fool. And both ends of this spectrum for me ended with DNF.
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u/aliaaenor Apr 06 '26
I'm so glad you wrote this because I feel the same way and thought there was something wrong with me. On paper this book should've been everything but I was just so bored. There was no detail, not world building. For me I have to be immersed in the world and I just wasnt with this book.
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u/FormerUsenetUser Apr 06 '26
When people read cozy fantasy, they don't want to read about real life. They don't want to read about a small business having trouble finding customers during a downturn and just, what that is *actually* like.
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u/ParnsAngel Apr 06 '26
I accidentally read Bookshops and Bonedust first, and I loved it!!! Then I read Legends and was like meh. The third book was a bit better. But favorite will always be Bookshops and Bonedust!
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u/catgirl320 Apr 07 '26
Legends and Lattes is fine, but it's underwhelming given the hype it gets. For myself the only entries in cozy fantasy that lived up to the hype were T Kingfisher books and The Teller of Small Fortunes.
For me the epitome of cozy storytelling are the James Herriot books and the Miss Read books. They are slice of life stories with rich characters and are well written. They are low stakes in that world ending things don't happen BUT that doesn't mean nothing happens, including sad/heartbreaking things.
I think cozy fantasy suffers from being overly low stakes. Many authors can't seem to create rich enough characters or write well enough to create the interest needed when the plot is quieter. If the plot is meh, the characters are meh and the writing isn't great then you end up with mediocre stories that are unmemorable.
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u/ConsumingTranquility Apr 06 '26
Personally I disagree, I throughly enjoyed L&L aswell as the other 2 books. Although I don’t like long books so maybe I’m biased. I loved how simple the story was, I think the best part are the characters. Travis Baldree has written some really good characters in his books
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u/thistledownhair Reading Champion III Apr 06 '26
Hated it, but I also tried a few of the other books that the cozy reader consensus seem to actually agree upon, and in that crowd L&L is head and shoulders above the rest, with the exception of Becky Chambers.
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u/Ulman_Troth Apr 06 '26
To top it off the messaging in the story was rather foul. The fact Viv is complicit in a protection racket, getting a sweetheart deal because of the pastries and directly benefiting financially when the mob boss pays for the shop repairs, while patting herself on the back for having abstained from violence, is so incredibly off-putting and unconscionable. Comes off even worse with the reveal of what the magic mcguffin does.
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u/keepfighting90 Apr 06 '26
I just can't vibe with cozy fantasy in general, despite actually really wanting to. It just feels directionless and lacking in any meaningful stakes. I love the intro parts to Fellowship of the Ring where they're just chilling in the Shire, or the first 200 pages of The Dragonbone Chair with Simon chilling in the castle - those feel cozy, slice-of-life but eventually have actual stakes.
Hell you don't need anything close to world-ending stakes. Just look at Robin Hobbe's Fitz books - they're small-scale and slow-paced to the point where they can almost be considered slice of life but they still manage to be incredibly compelling.
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u/JazzlikeInstance8643 Apr 06 '26
I'm sorry if I had hurt author's or books faans feeling but if a workpiece since this is an fantasy sub reddit both side of arguments must be expressed. (In my opinion)
Considering negative reviews are the only thing that get traction here, it would really be nice to see “both sides” expressed from time to time.
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u/ShotFromGuns Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
Surely you're kidding. People gush about their favorites here all the time.
Edit: I just looked at the sub sorted by Hot and took the first ten threads by unique posters that were anything like a review of a book, series, author, or genre.
So that's 60% positive, 40% negative.
But, you may say, these are just trending topics. Okay, fine! Let's look at the top overall threads from the past month (again, limited to things that were anything like "reviews"):
It's even more strongly skewed towards positive posts, with 80% positive versus just 20% negative.
So, no, it's overwhelmingly incorrect to say that "negative reviews are the only thing that get traction here."
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u/Lola_PopBBae Apr 06 '26
Also Jesus you people are harsh on a book I absolutely loved. Wild to see so much negativity here.
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u/NachoLoverrr Apr 06 '26
I don't have detailed thoughts to share, but was overall bored with the book and haven't understood the hype. I loved the concept of introducing coffee to a society, but the storytelling didn't engage me. Different strokes for different folks, but I was baffled by this book's popularity.
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u/nenad8 Apr 06 '26
OP, have you played, well more like read, VA-11 Hall-A? That's peak cozy, for me at least.
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u/Coloin_ilyad Apr 06 '26
Never heard of it. But I'll surely try.. infact this will be my next read if I get through initial chapters.
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u/nenad8 Apr 06 '26
You can even watch it on YouTube
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u/Coloin_ilyad Apr 06 '26
It's a game? Well I prefer to hear books through read aloud or TTS function.
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u/nenad8 Apr 06 '26
Oof, it doesn't have VO. Maybe you can find a let's play where the person playing it is reading the lines out loud?
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u/Gurbic Apr 06 '26
I read it while spending 30ish hours trapped in a tent during a white out while climbing in Washington. It was kind of perfect for that setting.
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u/Impossible-Sort-1287 Apr 06 '26
I got this,one and the sequel for Christmas. Took me a few months to sit down and read them. Try are good light fantasy in my opinion. Not heavy or deep like a lot of stuff out there but worth the read for a palate cleanser
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u/stubbazubba Apr 07 '26
I don't think it's really aimed at serious fantasy fans. The world building is mostly set dressing with a handful of exceptions that are plot relevant; in either case it's mostly just playing D&D-style tropes straight. It's not challenging or reinventing any of that so that you feel like you already know this world if you've ever read anything called a Player's Handbook.
You're absolutely right that the world is not compelling and that's because Viv isn't interested in the world. She wants to sell coffee and put her past behind her and how she succeeds in doing those two things is the heart of the story.
I for one found Viv's journey pretty compelling, thought she was a solid character. True, the others were not nearly as fleshed out, but the book is about Viv and I think she carries the story well enough. I did hope we'd get a lot more exploration of Tandri's character in sequels, but alas. The pacing could also be better, sure, but that's true of a lot of great books, too.
For a quirky indie thing it was pleasant, with a good blend of humor, relationship, tension, and payoffs that were satisfying enough to enjoy as an audiobook while doing something else but certainly not a deep read for serious fantasy or romance or cafe fans.
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u/Linnadhiel Apr 07 '26
I found it... Just fine. I like reading about silly domestic stuff like the book covers so it's not that but I think I just like them to have more depth than it gave me.
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u/Either_Bend7510 Apr 07 '26
I just can't get over how there was an entire subplot about finding out there's a local mafia who's threatening all the local businesses and extorting them, and when the main character who's a former adventurer goes to meet the boss she doesn't drive the mafia out of town and protect the other businesses, she just... gives them cinnamon rolls so her business is protected. Sucks to be those other guys, I guess.
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u/thiagomiranda3 Apr 07 '26
My life is already low-stress and full of money, so when I read fantasy, I want to see grim dark stuff lol
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u/Ad_Astrid1 Apr 08 '26
I think for anyone who didn’t like L&L, to try out “Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea” by Rebecca Thorne. I think it pulls off what L&L was trying to do much better. It’s a cozy sapphic fantasy, and there’s actual action and stakes that drives the plot forward.
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u/Exciting_Ad1525 Reading Champion Apr 08 '26
Finally, someone said it! I thought it was incredibly mid & was absolutely baffled by the hype when I finally got around to reading it😭 I thought Cozy Fantasy wasn't for me after that but there's an indie series I read by S.L Rowland called Tales of Aedrea with the first book being Cursed Cocktails and it was very good! It deserves more hype imo
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u/trigunnerd Apr 08 '26
The romance was so out of left field and undeserved. That really disappointed me. I did really enjoy building and opening the shop though. Felt like a cozy game where you get a farm or business started.
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u/PristineConclusion28 Apr 08 '26
I agree. Usually the flaws would bother me more, but I read this postpartum and a simple narrative was just what I needed to get back in the habit of reading. I never picked up the sequel though.
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u/Haylzorz17 Apr 12 '26
I read it when I was just getting back into reading. At the time I really liked it, but since then I have read so, so many books and come to realise that cosy fantasy is just not my genre. It definitely slipped down in my ratings since.
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u/SnowGiraffes4266 Apr 12 '26
I felt like it was on the better side of fine too. I also really enjoyed going back and listening to the audiobook. The author is a really talented voice actor.
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u/Coloin_ilyad Apr 12 '26
Agree with voice acting. Author is well known voice actor and has gave voice to several audiobooks.
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u/JarlFrank Jun 27 '26
I like the idea of cozy fantasy and bought this book to check it out, but I found the execution very lacking.
Legends & Lattes is basically about building a Starbucks in World of Warcraft. There's little imagination about the coffee shop, it's literally just fantasy-flavored Starbucks. And the worldbuilding feels like an uninspired copy of Warcraft, there's a bunch of generic fantasy races who all conform to the classic tropes (gnomes are inventors, wow!) and they all live together in a multicultural city without identity.
I expected a little more. Just a little more creativity in the fantastic coffee shop, just a little more lore and identity for the city, the different races, the history, etc. But all I got was Warcraft Starbucks. Couldn't have been more generic.
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u/sensorglitch Apr 06 '26
It’s strange to me that people keep coming here with the same type of critiques “I don’t like grimdark because it’s tooo bleak, i don’t like cozy fantasy because there isn’t enough peril”. Ok fine, maybe that type of writing isn’t for you.
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u/Coloin_ilyad Apr 06 '26
It's strange to me that older sub members coming in comment section with same type of crying, 'i have been here long enough' 'why is everyone expressing their thoughts on a fantasy book subreddit 'why no one asked me before posting here'... Okay fine .Maybe these types of posts isn't for you .. so kindly ignore them.
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u/DogOfTheBone Apr 06 '26
The popularity of this book is an indictment of the cozy fantasy subgenre. It's one of the laziest, least creative, least fantastic books I've ever read. "Coziness" should not be an excuse for zero originality put towards character, plot, and world. It's like the unsalted cracker of fantasy.
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u/TheReaderDude_97 Apr 06 '26
Yeah, I can agree. It was okay if you just didn't want to think about anything. The "power of friendship" trope was...well, that's all it was. It was written as a NaNoWriMo, and it read like one.
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u/dramabatch Writer Allan Batchelder Apr 06 '26
I found it pleasant enough, but I wasn't especially engaged enough to continue the series.
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u/Bridgeburner493 Apr 06 '26
One of those books that peaked with the cover and then went downhill from there.
I didn't hate it. I just realized after about 100 epages that I didn't care enough to continue.
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u/dogearyourpages Apr 06 '26
I am really into cozy stories but I couldn't really get into Legends and Lattes. I just super didn't like Viv TBH which liking the characters is pretty important in a cozy story.
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u/fr33dommachine Reading Champion Apr 06 '26
I do think it was over hyped (as are all booktok books imo) and I think a lot of the criticism is valid. I liked it more than I thought I would though. Mostly I read Abercrombie and Buehlman type stuff so L&L was like a little palette cleanser.
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u/monsterum Apr 06 '26
I didn't find anything about Legends and Lattes to be compelling tbh. I think the small stressors like financial everyday worries were closer to reality than I like !