How to describe this novel?

Where to even begin?

Espresso Love is something completely unique. Have you ever read 1984? How about A Wrinkle in Time? Have you seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Well, if you have the great fortune to know all three, combine them together in your mind. Add a dash of The Matrix and you have the ingredients for Espresso Love. But don't just toss them together like a salad, or bake it like a casserole. It must be formed with the utmost care, each ingredient in perfect proportion to the other, no flavor overpowering the other, each adding to the dish as a whole. Don't boil it too much; don't under cook it. You cannot recreate a Japanese art form without intimate care to each detail, meticulous, loving attention to the entire work. You cannot prepackage or mass produce real sushi. You can't prepackage hot coffee. Such things must be prepared by a master.

When I started reading on Wattpad, I never expected to find a book that really held a candle to published fiction. But in Espresso Love, I did.

When I came to Wattpad, I never expected to find a book I loved and admired. But in Espresso Love, I did.

When I came to Wattpad, I never expected to find a masterpiece.

But, ladies and gentlemen, I have.

This book is everything advertised. It is a story of love in a world that knows nothing but the endless grind of the machine. It is a story that excites the imagination, that challenges the mind, that invigorates the soul. It was a heartbreak, it was a song, it was a dream that you never want to wake from. It speaks to the very heart of a nation and a world that lives by the clock and the image of the perfect world that Instagram and Facebook feed our awaiting mouths. And it calls to them, asks them to be free, to wake from the silence, the Image, that awaits them down that path.

You see, there is a world that is beyond the scope of the waking mind. Consciousness is not simply contained by the frail shell of the body. It's called the Collective. Some people are called espres, who have the latent image of the Collective within them. Such is Kaneko Shizuka (surname first), the mysterious, perplexing, mystical girl with a signature order: tall caramel chai tea latte, soy, 120 degrees, extra whip. Remember this order, she says; it may be important.

The world has other forces within it as well. You see, there is a system to this world, a system that requires no connection to the Collective, a system of nothingness built only out of the mathematical etiquette that binds this near-future Japanese society together. Such are the servants of the Cause. System is Everything. Never break etiquette.

The system grinds all under its weight. The system destroys individuality and free will; eventually, if you are left under its thumb for too long, you lose yourself to the system. You become an Image, the empty shell of a person, a mysterious hunter dressed in black suits, a complete servant of the system.

But there are those who, for a while, can retain their individuality, the greater part of themselves. Such is Maeda Naoki, an Anomaly. An abnormal one in many ways; he is a literature student, a budding philosopher, an unwitting participant in the system, a follower of etiquette.

Until he meets Shizuka.

What follows is perhaps the most compelling story of love in the face of mortal danger that I have ever read. In a world where simply the act of falling in love defies the fabric of reality, where following your heart is disorderly and destructive to the system, this couple defies the world. Shizuka is desperate to save Naoki through whatever means necessary, for she knows that given half a chance the forces beyond either of their imagination will destroy them both in a way that no one can truly comprehend.

Now, there are a lot of stories, especially on Wattpad, that use this kind of premise. It appeals a lot to the teenage mindset, which I think is Wattpad's primary demographic. I can't count how many dystopian romances I've seen here and in the paperback section of grocery stores all over the country. But this one is different. The danger here is existential, shadowy, a product of the mind as much or more as the matter of the story. Several of the sections that chilled me to the bone were sections where no physical danger seemed to be present. They chilled me not because the action in it was gruesome, or intense, or shocking, but strange. Espresso Love invokes the existential dread of attention; Shizuka and Naoki have to break the mold, express themselves, and stand out in order to survive the ongoing grind of the system. And the system watches them. It puts their tender moments on the big screen for everyone to see, and then watches them. Then, nothing happens for days. The fear isn't something that goes bump in the night; it's the fear of silence when you're expecting something to go bump in the night.

The writing is some of the best I've ever seen. I've read many things, but this is some of the best prose of anything I've ever encountered; structured and verbose when it needs to be, soft and refined where it fit better. TAKATSU may or may not be a native English speaker, but if not, he's given me a run for my money, and I'm the son of an English teacher, and that's impressive. I could describe his language, but it really must be experienced to be appreciated. To illustrate what I mean, let me compare it to animation; the prose in Espresso Love is like Kubo and the Two Strings, beautiful and suggestive and carefully and wonderfully crafted by hand. Even the extensive philosophical treatises were engaging and drew me in.

The tone of this book was perhaps my favorite part. It was mystical and romantic, ephemeral and intellectual, like it exists just beyond the reach of human comprehension. It reminded me of reading The Giver or watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, mystical stories with hidden meaning and symbolic, meditative action.

The characters? Let me put it this way, I am actually in love with Shizuka. If she was real, I would almost ask her out immediately; she is beautiful, she is strong, she is passionate, and she is witty and kind. Almost, but not quite. Ultimately, I think I wouldn't. Why? I mean, she's everything I want from a girl, or a friend in general. But I wouldn't do it, because I couldn't bring myself to steal her from Naoki. Nor do I think she would let me. I think that they work together better than almost any couple I've encountered. The way they flirt isn't just adorable or suggestive, it's real, like they were a flesh and blood couple in a relationship that they knew would last forever, as I think all relationships should. They're not that couple, though. They just know themselves and trust each other, because they know that they're together for life or for death. It's not alluring or seductive; it's beautiful. Their romance is the way it should be; a joyful, playful give and take.

So, I've drooled a little over this book. Final score, then, you ask with a smirk, already knowing the answer?

Ah. See, I was hoping you wouldn't ask that.

Because now, I have to stop raving for just a moment about this wonderful, beautiful book, and talk about its flaws, of which there are some.

Firstly, it's a very complicated, confusing book. Not in the way that a Tom Clancy novel dizzies you with intricate technological detail and complex spy action, no. It's just weird as heck. I don't understand any of it after the first part, and as it progresses, it gets weirder and weirder, to the point where you're not even sure what's supposed to be happening or if it's actually happening. Do you remember when The Life of Pi introduced us to a carnivorous island shaped like a person? This was like that, but without the accompanying rational explanation that The Life of Pi offered us. Maybe I read it too quickly, because I was too infatuated with the story, but I frequently found myself asking, "why is he searching for a coffee bean in a hermetically sealed underground biodome" or "why can another person interact with a figment of his imagination" or other questions that I never expected to be asking myself while reading a book, plus plenty of "where is this happening," "what does he need to do now," "who is this guy again," and, lest we forget, "what?" The climax of the story is probably the weirdest part of all of it, although it's also probably the easiest to understand on a certain level. The author actually left a note to let us know that he explains it a little in a supplemental material published elsewhere, it was so strange.

Second, fair warning, there is sexual material in this story. I would be remiss if I did not put a fair warning on it. It's not terribly explicit, and it's mercifully brief. I wouldn't even necessarily classify it as smut, because I don't think it was intended to be taken as such. There is a difference, after all, between saying "we had sex and it was good" and saying "I made her moan by doing X things." The first is a simple statement of truth and a value statement of the experience; the second invites the reader to share in the experience by filling his or her head with the exact images of the body parts involved. I mean, sex is a real thing and it's a beautiful and good thing, and it should be talked about as such. But the second doesn't do that; it's meant as a simulation of intimacy without being intimate, which demeans the act itself and reduces the role of the other person, which is required for sexual intimacy, by placing the focus thereof entirely within the reader's skull. I think that this example falls into the first category.

I also object to this particular sequence because of the context. You remember how I said Shizuka and Naoki were a joyful couple? Well, not when they have sex. The first line of part two is "The first time we had sex, she was crying." The narrator clarifies it wasn't because she was unwilling, or even that she didn't enjoy the process, but because she was "confused," or unsure, or something. Later, it becomes clear that she did it out of necessity, to save Naoki and herself in a way, a spiritual connection as well as a physical one. It's clear that it's still an act of love, but the act itself was still an act without joy. And it leads to unclear consequences down the line; after that, the couple I fell in love with in the first part weren't the same. The joy had left them, especially her, and the difference between Shizuka in part one and Shizuka in part two broke my heart; I almost couldn't keep reading after that. Sex should be a joyful experience, not simply a compassionate one or even a sensual one. If it isn't, something is very wrong. And the book doesn't resolve the problems caused by this.

In fact, my biggest problem is that this book is so joyless. I'm Christian, if you hadn't already gathered that, and one of the things my Church teaches is that truth, beauty, and good are one and the same thing, and that embracing them will make you happy, or as I've been putting it, joyful. The world painted here is bleak. It depicts a struggle that can't ever be over, a world in which joy is present but always a risk. But how does one defy the system without it? Through self control and the assertion of individuality, says Shizuka, our leader and guide through this strange version of Japan. But that doesn't save them in the end. All it does is delay the inevitable. Fortune does appear to give them a break near the end, but do they really live happily ever after? I don't know. But the sad part is that they don't take the chance to live their lives to the fullest while they can. They don't live and love joyfully, come what may. They live and love carefully, always in fear of the existential dread of the system. And that breaks my heart.

So final score? Well, what do we have? A story of love in the face of danger and imminent death. A beautiful sorrow. A foreign dream of a foreign land. A story of two people groping for meaning and love in the darkness, with only each other to rely upon. A story that fills my cold, Vulcan heart with love and then lets it drip out bit by bit like the tears of Fantine in Les Miserables. A story that explores the cruelty of the world in a way that mimics the world as we experience it, so that you see what it's saying without really understanding it. And it's a story that means so much more than it says. I've always said that art is on what's left unsaid, and there is so much that this could have said but that it didn't, to let you fill in. Symbolism? Oh it's there, not that I understand all of it. But it's more than that. Symbolism hearkens to a world beyond the story. It's there all right. But what this story does is so much more important for a story. It hearkens back and forth within itself. Even as I was checking details within it to write this review, I noticed setups in the first page that wouldn't pay off until part four. And, lest we forget, we have a tall caramel chai tea latte, soy, 120 degrees, extra whip. Maybe the most important thing of all.

So I give Espresso Love five out of the five stars I have to give it. Not espressos, you'll notice; real stars. I rounded up, because I had to knock off a tiny fraction of a star for the objections above, but for all intents and purposes, five glorious, joyful stars. This is a diamond in the rough of Wattpad's extensive, vast terrain, a pearl of great price which I have found. If my own works turn to nought, the least I can do is direct you to this book. For what else does art do besides reflect a higher light beyond our own reach? If it doesn't do that, what does it do? And why make it?