Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi; Translated By: Geoffrey Trousselot
Genre: Japanese Cosy Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
My Favourite Quote: “If you could go back, who would you want to meet?”
My Review:
What a beautiful read it was. “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” is a heartwarming tale about different characters who choose to time travel. Now, there have been many books written about time travel, and many movies and TV series have explored the concept. This book is one of them. However, the book doesn’t dwell on the wonder and surrealness of time travel. That said, it feels wrong to classify this book under the science fiction genre (I will still tag it as such because I follow Kobo in this regard).
As I mentioned, the sci-fi aspect of time travel may not touch your heart; instead, it is the human emotions and stories that travel through time which do. The story is set in a café where people can travel into the past and future. There are rules, though, and thank goodness for those rules that prevent the reader from getting distracted by thoughts of alternate timelines and their complexities. The rules don’t allow for that. In the story, we meet four customers who make the journey to experience a moment in their lives that is not in the present. They emerge from their time travel wiser, happier, and with a shed of tears for themselves and for the reader.
The characters, both main and side ones, are well-crafted. They all have a role to play, and the author has done a great job of ensuring that no one overshadows the others.
The writing is clear, and the pacing of the narration is excellent. As we experience each character’s time travel, the emotions conveyed through the writing resonate deeply. There were moments when I felt misty-eyed and joyful alongside the characters.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold is the first book in the five-book namesake series. The first book has definitely won me over, and I am looking forward to the next one in the series: Tales from the Cafe.
This review is also published on Goodreads.