The Orange Mocha-Chip Frappuccino Years

The Orange Mocha-Chip Frappuccino Years

Author	Paul Howard
Illustrator	Alan Clarke
Cover artist	Alan Clarke
Country	Republic of Ireland
Language	English
Series	Ross O'Carroll-Kelly
Genre	comic novel, satire
Set in	Dublin, 2000–2001
Publisher	The O'Brien Press
Publication date	7 March 2003
Media type	Paperback
Pages	208
ISBN	0-86278-809-9
Dewey Decimal	823.92
Preceded by	Roysh Here, Roysh Now… The Teenage Dirtbag Years
Followed by	PS, I Scored The Bridesmaids

The Orange Mocha-Chip Frappuccino Years is a 2003 novel by Irish journalist and author Paul Howard, and the third in the Ross O'Carroll-Kelly series. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

The title refers to the Sue Townsend novel Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years , as well as the orange mocha frappuccino drink ordered by three male models in the film Zoolander .

Background

Howard wrote The Orange Mocha-Chip Frappuccino Years in autumn 2002, intending it to be the last novel in the series. The idea of making Ross an estate agent came to Howard after shopping for a house himself and being offered a modest house for IR£750,000 by a very young estate agent. ^[4]

A Moscow publisher aimed to publish The Orange Mocha-Chip Frappuccino Years in Russian translation, but Howard struggled to explain the Irish cultural references. The translator wanted to change Ross to a basketball player instead of rugby; the Russian edition was never published. ^[5]

Plot

Statue of Ross

After dropping out of college and being kicked out of home by his parents, Ross finds work as an estate agent for Hook, Lyon and Sinker. ^[6]

Reception

Writing in The Irish Times , Aengus Collins reviewed it negatively, saying "Ross is a character with considerable comic potential, but regrettably little of this potential is realised here. One of the problems is that Ross is a fool living amidst like-minded fools. Too much of the reader's time is spent in the restricted company of Ross's largely identikit friends and acquaintances. […] There is little to pull the story forward, and the telescoping of Ross's emotional development, such as there is of it, into the final four pages of the book is simply lazy." ^[7]

References

1. "Ross O'Carroll-Kelly: Orange Mocha-Chip Years by Paul Howard: Ross O'Carroll-Kelly, an O'Brien Press book". Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 1 September 2010.
2. "Ross O'Carroll-Kelly - Books - the Orange Mocha Chip Frappuccino Years". Archived from the original on 14 September 2010. Retrieved 1 September 2010.
3. Maher, Eamon; O'Brien, Eugene (4 September 2014). From Prosperity to Austerity: A Socio-Cultural Critique of the Celtic Tiger and Its Aftermath. Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780719091681 – via Google Books.
4. O'Carroll-Kelly, Ross (12 September 2012). Ross O'Carroll-Kelly: The Orange Mocha-Chip Frappuccino Years. The O'Brien Press. ISBN   9781847174420 – via Google Books.
5. Howard, Paul. "Paul Howard: Ten things I've learned writing Ross O'Carroll-Kelly". The Irish Times.
6. Gorman, Clare (1 June 2015). The Undecidable: Jacques Derrida and Paul Howard. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN   9781443883597 – via Google Books.
7. "Ross loses the plot en route to Tallaght". The Irish Times.