Book Review : Before The Coffee Gets Cold

Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi is translated from Japanese to English by Geoffrey Trousselot. It is a novel that explores magical realism and time travel.

Book Blurb On Amazon

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s moving Before the Coffee Gets Cold, translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, explores the age-old question: what would you do if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a cafe which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the cafe’s time-travelling 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, see their sister one last time, and meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the cafe, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Review

This book is a compelling and captivating novel that explores the themes of love, loss, sympathy, regret, and second chances. 

The author maintains the plot throughout the novel. Though the book has four chapters with stories of different characters, there is connectivity between them. Readers will find comfort while reading to connect with the tales explored in this book, chapter by chapter.

Readers will love how the author brings in the character development, as at the beginning of the book, there is a chart representation of the characters and how they connect. Even if, while reading, readers lose track of character, they have a choice to go back and explore the diagram. Each personality in the stories unfolds with detailed descriptions reflecting from the past to the present.

Each story focuses on the personal struggles and regrets of centralized characters. The first story is about lovers. The next explores a couple whose husband gets diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The third one is about two sisters and their tense bond. The final story is about future time travel between a mother and child where the mother already knew either her baby or she could survive.

Readers will love the writing style of the author. It is simple and intriguing. While reading, the readers will find how well the author maintains the melancholy as the theme of the cafe in the story. Since there are four stories exploring the personal struggles of different people, readers may consider it as filling a void by adding undesirable information to a story. 

It is an intriguing and lovely book exploring magic realism and time travel with a glimpse of struggles and regrets that readers may connect. Indeed, people often leave conversations and relationships at loose strings, leading to misunderstanding and separation. But, if given a second chance, things can improve, or at least as the author writes, “No matter what difficulties people face, they will always have the strength to overcome them. It just takes heart. And if the chair can change someone’s heart, it clearly has its purpose.”

If you love to read time travel stories, try this book and share your experience with me. I would love to discuss this book. 

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