Book Review - Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Title: Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Series: Before the Coffee Gets Cold (#1)
Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
 
Description: In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than on hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.
 
We meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-traveling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.
 
But the journey into the past does not come without any risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold…
 
Review: This modern Japanese novel describes four stories in which we are introduced to café guests who want to go back to the past. The first is about a woman who broke up with her boyfriend. She wants to visit the past to confront him. The second story revolves around a man with Alzheimer’s. His wife wants to find a letter from him in the past. The third café guest wants to speak to her sister one last time. And in the final story, a mother wants to meet her daughter for the first time.
 
Time travel has been done many times, in many unique ways, and it always surprises me how people think of new ways to introduce this phenomenon. I really loved the concept of the café, where you can travel back in time and have to be back before the coffee gets cold. It’s extra interesting, when the guests hear they can’t change the future, even if they change the past. So, why travel back in time?
 
I really liked this book, but I didn’t love it. I didn’t enjoy every story. The story that got the biggest emotional punch, was the last one. The first story didn’t really do anything for me. The second touched me because it reminded me of my grandmother and did the third was my second favorite story. But that final one, was a punch in the gut. Obviously the second half a the book was a lot better.
 
I think a lot of the real emotion was lost in translation. I am by no means an expert in Japanese literature, I’ve only read a few works from Japanese authors. I also thought the overall story was repetitive at times. But the concept is so unique and I can really appreciate it. And that last story was such an emotional one. I heard it made people cry. That didn’t happen to me (and I cry easily), but it did hit all the feels.
 
I understand why this book is such a success and I could recommend it. It’s a fairly quick read, but I didn’t fall in love with this book.
 
Rating: 3,5/ 5