Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans by Joanne Demaio

Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans by Joanne Demaio  ISBN 9781479262779

Here is my latest book review on this easy reading novel.

At times I find myself scratching my head trying to figure out how and why a book got its title. I was happy to be able to truly understand the title of this book as one of the main characters was a designer of denim clothing. This is the author’s second novel. I wasn’t able to read her first but I was very pleased with this story. Other than some confusion at first trying to sort out all the different characters, it was an interesting story of old friends meeting up at the beach where they had hung out in the summers while growing up. Now they are all in their late 20’s or early 30’s and life hasn’t been kind to all of them. Some have survived tragedies, others are having financial and marital problems and others are having emotional problems due to unanswered questions form their childhood. Maris feels cut off after losing her mother, a woman she only knew through old 8mm home movies, and Eva who was adopted and has spent much of her life trying to track down her birth parents.

As someone who moved around way too much while growing up, I always wonder if there are really these kinds of deep long term relationships from a person’s teen years. Since I read a lot of books about close friendships, I can only assume that they do exist. If so, these were a group of kids that grew up that still cared for each other, they weren’t being catty behind the others backs. So this was a great picture of friendship and relationships. It also involved finding the clues to what Maris and Eva searched for all these years.

This is an interesting and readable book with characters that you can relate to and like. I don’t like reading books where I really end up hating several of the characters. While some of the story may seem a bit far fetched, they do say that truth is stranger than fiction, especially in Eva’s search for her birth mother, a delicate topic even still in today’s world.